


Catfish

by crimandclove



Series: The Art of Being Caught [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Derek and Stiles are the Same Age, Every body is the same age, M/M, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4091131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimandclove/pseuds/crimandclove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>cat-fish (verb) - to lure (someone) into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.</p><p>Stiles is sick and tired of being the only one without a date, so he decides to set up an OK Cupid profile. Little does he know, the guy he starts talking to isn't all what he seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Lure

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this started out as an idea based off of a story that I read on either tumblr or a reddit post on tumblr about someone getting catfished, meeting the guy that the catfish person was using and then hooking up with them. This isn't the same plotline but it is where it starts out. I know some people are sensitive about this sort of thing so I'm making it known right off the bat.
> 
> Secondly I'm sorry it has taken so long for me to post anything! I have had some serious writers block and my real people jobs have just not allowed me to do much except for work, sleep, and attempt to exercise. I have no idea why this prompt took hold of me but I'm going to keep trying go with it.
> 
> Hopefully I'll be able to start the second part of 'The Story of Us' eventually. I just hope I can finish this! 
> 
> Comments are always welcome!! I really need feedback, it helps me continue my process. Love and light to you all.

It had started as a joke, sort of.

He signed up for OK Cupid after several failed attempts to get a date at school. Lydia? Hahaha. Mary from the Mathletes? Apparently dating Jason from the track team. Rose? She had said she would rather go on a date with Scott. Overall it was incredibly depressing. He was eighteen for Christ’s sakes; if he didn’t get a date for senior prom in four months, he would probably just die out of sheer embarrassment. It was the end of December and he felt like there was no hope for him if he didn’t start to lay groundwork now.

So, after a few awkward conversations with Scott, he decided that internet dating would be a smarter idea. People could get to know his stunning personality before they saw … all of him in motion. He had plenty of above average pictures. With typing at least he could think about what he was going to say before sending it. It wasn’t like the word vomit he had spewed three times over as many weeks at three separate girls. He could get to know a person without being worried about seeing them in Economics the next day.

Scott, the major bro that he was, volunteered to spend his Friday night helping Stiles with his profile. 

They spread out on the living room floor, the laptop in front of Stiles as Scott propped himself up against the back of the couch, a notepad in his lap. 

“Okay, so to begin I need a profile name ..” Stiles said, squinting at the screen.

“Stilinkinator.” Scott threw out.

“No, that makes me sound like the Terminator.”

“I would date you.”

“Thanks for the ringing endorsement, Scott.” Stiles huffed back.

“Stiles Skywalker?” Scott suggested.

“Scott, my man, I’m proud of you remembering that name with how many times I have said that to you, but I don’t really think that’ll work unless I’m on some Star Wars fansite.” Mentally, Stiles told himself to write that down. It could come in handy one day.

“Dude, like, no one has your last name. Why not just use that?” Scott said. He had begun to tap his pen on his notepad.

“Perfect. Simple. Good idea, Scott.” Stiles said, typing in his last name before entering his email, first and last name and creating his login. After verifying he was not a robot, he ended up staring at his blank profile. “Scotty, what picture should I use?”

“What about your Facebook profile one?” Scott said. Stiles turned around and saw him texting someone. 

“No, I look like I was struck by lightning.” Stiles pulled up his Facebook. “Who are you texting, anyway?”

“Kira, from gym? She told me she needed help with her Spanish practice quizzes before the midterm next week.” Scott said, stabbing at his phone.

“Aww, young love. They grow up so fast.” Stiles cooed. Scott threw the pen at him. 

“This is about you, dude.” Scott reprimanded, looking over the notepad at his best friend.

“Well I just want to get this done so we can go eat the pizza rolls in the freezer.”

Scott brightened. “Just crop me out of one of the pictures we took at the fair over the summer. Those are all pretty good.”

Stiles clicked around and found one that he could consider decent, then downloaded it and cropped it. He didn’t want to take any chances and have someone message him, thinking he was Scott.

He then scrolled through all of the sections, slyly looking at Scott before checking interested in both men and women. He wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, per se, but he wasn’t necessarily totally open with his best friend and his dad. He … he didn’t want to talk about it unless it actually happened. It was the one secret he seemed to be able to keep.

His bio … He looked over at Scott for help but his best friend seemed to be doodling on the note pad and texting Kira with increasing frequency. Stiles rolled his eyes. Short and sweet, he said to himself. Keep it short and sweet.

_Hi, I’m Stiles and no that isn’t my real name. I’m 18, over in Beacon Hills. Looking for someone to create a genuine relationship. I would like to think that about seven times out of ten I do the best thing, but sometimes my sarcasm gets the better of me. One best friend, no pets though that’s because my dad and best friend are both allergic. Big fan of curly fries and Chinese food. If you actually want to sit through the original trilogy of Star Wars, give me a shout._

Then he noticed the question section. A few were normal, some were kind of weird. 

“Scott, listen to this question. ‘Would you want to be supreme ruler of the Earth?’ Who asks that?” 

“Stiles, please answer no to that. I know you would like to, but you know that no one would find that funny besides you.” Scott said, scooting over to behind Stiles. “ ‘Do you like the taste of beer?’ That’s a weird question.”

“I’m not going to answer that.” Scott raised an eyebrow. “Dude, my last name is very unique, as you said, so I’m not going to put anything illegal out there in case someone links me back to my dad.”

“True. ‘In the line, _Wherefore art thou, Romeo_ , what does wherefore mean?’ How are you supposed to answer that?” 

“I am so glad you’re in regular English and not AP.” Stiles clicked the obvious answer. 

They traded jokes over about fifty more questions before they started surfing matches. There were a few cute girls, but Stiles was adamant about reading all of their answers and by the time a relatively attractive guy had popped up, Scott was watching an episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ on Netflix.

Overall he sent three messages out to three separate people. Jenna, a tall brunette that enjoyed Batman movies, Angela, whose favorite character was ironically Angela from ‘The Office’, and Zach, who was just hot and Stiles didn’t mind striking out digitally.

 ---

Stiles waited until he was done with all of his homework Sunday night to check his profile. So far he had only received a message back from Jenna, who said her favorite Batman was Clooney. Basically, he was fucked. He half-heartedly sent a message back about the cheesiness of Batman and Robin.

The last week of school before break loomed, and he sighed as he shut his laptop off and flung himself onto his bed.

 --- 

Luckily the week flew by. While he didn’t have the easiest schedule, he didn’t do so poorly on his exams. He used StayFocusd to keep himself from trolling the internet and bemoaning the probable lack of messages on his profile. 

He really only had trouble on the AP Chemistry exam, which was more of a Harris thing than a chemistry thing. His essay for AP Lit on _Mansfield Park_ was edited down to a clarity Stiles thought he would never see in his own writing. Even AP Macroecon with Coach was a breeze.

That Friday as he waited for Scott to be dropped off on his mom’s way to work, Stiles reopened his OK Cupid profile. Jenna hadn’t bothered to answer him again, Angela’s profile looked to be defunct and all Zach had sent back is a simple ‘dtf?’.

However, there was a random message from someone who he hadn’t contacted first. The codename was Silver Wolf, but the legal name came up as Seb Silver. It was just a ‘what’s up’ but it was more than he had expected from anyone viewing him first. He clicked through and it was like lightning had actually struck, not a fuck ton of styling cream and the makeup crew from the theater club.

Seb was tall, dark, and handsome. He was wearing sunglasses in his profile picture, but Stiles was sure that whatever was behind those frames matched the rest of this … Adonis. He had inky black hair, was leaning over a beautiful black sports car, and the smirk on his face screamed at Stiles to beware. 

So, Stiles messaged him back of course. 

Stilinski: _not much. dude, I love your car._

The waiting game began.

After he began to take all of his laundry off of his bed to make room for Scott, he took one last glance at the laptop. He had another message from SilverWolf.

SilverWolf: _Thanks. It was a present for my 18th back in July._

Stilinksi: _Cool, man! My car is old but I love it._

There were a few more messages exchanged, and in what felt like seconds Scott was at his front door, unlocking it. 

“Fuck.” Stiles mumbled to himself. He scrambled for his phone and downloaded the app, logging in quickly and switching over to that method. After he was all signed in, he shut his laptop and headed downstairs to greet his best friend.

 --- 

Time flew by over break. Seb was just making it easier; Stiles knew so much within the first week of talking to the guy. He had two siblings but he didn’t like to talk about them. He liked reading. He hated cheese. In the mornings he would type out long, elegant prose about how his morning was going; in the evenings he was short and choppy. Even when Stiles felt like he typed the wrong thing, Seb would just roll with it. Stiles wanted to luxuriate in the fact that, despite a few awkward attempts at actually getting the guy’s actual phone number and failing, he had a sort of boyfriend thing.

Sometimes Seb would be flirty and talk about how many ‘beauty marks’ – moles – Stiles had, if he had ever bothered counting them. That Seb would like to count them some day. Other days he would complain heavily about a girl named Laura, talk about his ‘little friend’ Allison. It felt like a roller coaster with him, but Stiles felt that if Seb could put up with him messaging Seb random facts at two in the morning, Stiles could put up with the poor guy’s mood swings.

Christmas came and went. Stiles heard from Seb briefly, but they were both so busy with their families that Stiles didn’t mind the silence. 

A few days later, Stiles was checking his phone as he and Scott took down the decorations around Stiles’ house. Stiles had been rambling to Seb about how they only decorated his house for Christmas because Scott’s mom worked so much over the holiday season when Scott stuck his nose right into it.

“Seb…” Scott read slowly. 

Stiles jumped and almost dropped his phone straight onto a patch of concrete. “Uh, hey there.”

“I thought maybe you were checking Reddit or something, but you’re still on OK Cupid? And you’re talking to a guy?” Scott’s voice came out a tad bit reedy.

“Yeah, I have been since break started. I don’t know what he and I are doing but it’s nice, you know?” Stiles looked away, not trying to bring up the elephant that seemed to be hanging in between him and his best friend.

“So, he’s cool?” Scott ventured forward.

“Yeah, he’s pretty great. He’s why I got the app on my phone. He - he hasn’t given me his number yet, so this is the only way I get to talk to him but it is still nice. Nice to have someone to talk to that doesn’t already know you. Nice to get to know someone, even if we end up being just friends.”

Scott raised a hand and gripped Stiles’ shoulder, causing Stiles to make eye contact. “Dude, that’s great! I’m glad it worked for you, even if it is just friends. Where does he live?”

Another thing Stiles had only been able to get a vague answer about. “Like, forty miles away? Not exactly sure. I think he’s just kind of guarded about telling a stranger stuff like this.” To be honest, Stiles had tried to be super chill about his stalking levels with this guy. He had reverse image searched his profile picture on Google, but no dice. Seb had no social media accounts to speak of and he ‘only got OK Cupid because I was feeling kind of lonely’. Seb had admitted that late one night when Stiles couldn’t sleep.

“I understand that. Why don’t you just invite him to the Sheriff’s New Years Party then? That’s neutral ground.” 

It wasn’t a bad idea. The Sheriff’s Office had an annual party in the community center downtown, where people could drink (sparkling cider for kids, local wines for adults) and then if they needed a lift home, the department would take them. All tips given that night went to fund the department’s scholarship awards. Plus it was open to the public, his dad would be there and Seb could leave at any time whatsoever. 

“That’s a great idea, Scotty!” Stiles said, pulling up the app on his phone.

“Okay, just send the invite so we can finally finish taking all of these twinkle lights down.” Scott turned to renew his wrestling with the holly bush.

Stiles typed quickly. He didn’t want to lose his nerve.

_Hey, I know you’ve been worried about meeting up or really giving me any info, but I would really like to meet you. Do you want to go to the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s New Years Party with me? Let me know._

He watched as the message sent. Now all he had to do was wait.


	2. The Snag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! I spent all my free time today doing this today. It's coming easier than expected. I feel like there might be a little rambling but it'll get there, I swear.
> 
> As always, comments are greatly appreciated (especially if there are mistakes!). Love and light.

An hour passed of Stiles and Scott fighting with the holly bush, but when Stiles checked his phone all he had was a missed call from his dad. The voicemail, stated in quick bursts, just told Stiles that his dad had a big case hit and he wouldn’t be home until the morning. He groaned softly and turned to Scott. Scott, who held his own phone like the Holy Grail.

“What?” Stiles asked as he opened the OK Cupid app futilely. 

“Did you not hear?” Stiles glared at Scott. While Scott may have a few friends scattered here and there at school, Stiles really only had Scott. “Harris and the chemistry teacher over at Beacon Valley blew up their school.”

“What.” While Adrian Harris was his mortal enemy, blowing up an entire school was worthy of a second praise.

“Yeah, they had been doing some experiments over break based on … something. Kira says that Harris and the other teacher are so badly burnt they’re at the hospital in almost critical condition. It was a miracle that they found the two of them before the rest of the school blew up.”

Stiles felt his eyes attempt to leave their sockets at that statement. “Wait, all of Beacon Valley High School blew up?”

Scott nodded emphatically. “Yeah dude. Kira’s dad says that they’re going to bring all of them to our school for the second half of the year. Dude, I wonder if that means we’re going to have to try out again for the team?”

Stiles groaned. He had worked so hard last summer to make first line on the lacrosse team, and the fact that the Beacon Valley Vikings might get a chance to try out for his team made him wish he could blow steam out of his ears. 

Beacon Valley, the neighbor of Beacon Hills, was where all of the preternaturally rich and snobby kids lived. The town itself started out as a country club right off of the Beacon Hills Nature Preserve, run and operated by the Hale family. They then built a giant house – an estate pretty much – as close as they could get to the Preserve borders. They also bought all of the land between the club and their house. Eventually, more people wanted to live in ‘the Valley’ and the land around it evolved into a sort of rich people clique town. 

It was officially incorporated as a town fifteen years ago. Their current mayor was – no surprise – a Hale. Their police chief was a Hale. The elementary and middle school were names for the two founding Hales. The only thing that wasn’t named after a Hale was their high school, but that was probably because Talia Hale was the mayor at that point and it looked self-indulgent. Therefore it was just plain old Beacon Valley High school. It was only five years old, which meant that Beacon Hills High School begrudgingly still had enough space for the couple hundred that went to Beacon Valley.

However, they were in the middle of basketball season, which would make things complicated. 

And lacrosse season started in two months, which meant that the team that Coach had spent three long summer months agonizing over would have to be changed. But Stiles wasn’t giving up his spot for anything. He had worked hard over the summer. He had even scored on Danny in goal when Danny was actually paying attention. He had every right to be on the team.

Hopefully whoever came out could just take Greenburg’s place or something. Greenburg belonged on the bench anyway. 

“I hope not. My dad says he’s going to be out all night, so do you wanna swing by Coach’s and see if we might have to?” 

Scott grinned. “Hell yeah, my mom’s working all night too. I wonder if Coach has any cupcakes we can eat.”

\---

During the winter, Coach Finstock worked in his family’s bakery and coffee shop. While the store was now run by his niece and nephew, Coach was still a quintessential member of the family. Plus, whenever someone needed him over break, they knew exactly where to find him.

It turned out that several of their teammates had the same idea that Stiles and Scott had, so when Stiles was in the process of parking, he heard the squeals of the Porsche’s tires. “Wonderful.” Stiles mumbled to himself. 

Scott had already bolted out of the car, waiting in front of the store for Isaac to get out of the Porsche. Isaac, who weirdly lived in one of the nicer neighborhood in town, also lived next to Jackson. For some reason Jackson seemed to like him more than he liked Stiles, so he always hitched rides places with Jackson and Danny. 

Stiles was suspicious of Isaac. He didn’t like the way he lit up when he saw Scott. He didn’t like how sometimes Isaac tried to entice Scott over to the jock table, even though Isaac didn’t belong there either. He didn’t like Isaac’s scarf collection. He plain just didn’t like Isaac. 

However, he had agreed to be at least civil to him when Scott was around because Scott genuinely liked the guy. Well, okay, Scott genuinely likes most people unless Stiles tells him not to. Even then Scott might like them anyway. 

Scott was frustrating. 

Stiles sighed and got out of his car, locked it by hand and moseyed into the shop. He only got pushed over once by Jackson and even then it wasn’t that bad because he just fell into a chair. A chair that was in a circle surrounding Finstock already. 

Finstock seemed to have found a whiteboard somewhere. It was labeled “strategy – BH v BV.”

“Listen here, cupcakes. Cell phones away.” Everyone put their phones in their pockets. “Good. The enemy is upon us. They know our names. They know our game plan. But they will never know our spirit, our liveliness, our composure!” Finstock exploded.

“Is this from somewhere?” Scott whispered out of the side of his mouth.

Stiles leaned forward. “No, I think this is all him.”

\---

After a few hours of inspirational speaking and planning, the whole lacrosse team trickled out of the bakery. Stiles started the car as Scott said a few last words to Isaac and hopped in. “Man that was so invigorating! I feel like I was in a movie.”

“Finstock is really fucking wired about this whole thing. I’m glad that they’re letting him coach though.”

“Yeah, we’re lucky that the coach at Beacon Valley was volunteer.” Scott paused, looking down at his phone. “Dude, has that guy messaged you back yet?”

Stiles had totally spaced. He fumbled for his phone, opened the app and … the profile was gone. “It’s gone.” Stiles mumbled as he clicked to another screen, hoping the app had just fucked up. 

“What?”

“His profile, it’s just … it’s gone. Like, totally.”

“Dude, let me see it.” Scott said, grabbing the phone from his hands. They fought over it for a few minutes before Scott’s wheezing had Stiles stop. Scott grinned and flipped through the application. “Well shit, it is gone. Maybe he’s just going to meet you there?”

“I don’t think deleting your profile is a resounding yes. Maybe I was just too pushy, y’know?” It wouldn’t be the first time someone was so thrown off by his insistence they do something. Normally it didn’t hurt this much though.

“Dude, New Years is in like, two days. If he doesn’t show up well just … just screw him, man! He isn’t worth it.” Scott pushed down hard on Stiles’ phone screen. “We can just hang out a lot until then and I even deleted the app so you don’t have to think about it.”

“Sure.” Stiles agreed morosely. 

“Let’s go back to your house. We could make super nachos?” Scott suggested.

Stiles sighed and threw the car into reverse. At least he could eat his feelings.

\---

Stiles went to the New Years Party in his nicest button down and slacks. He dressed up mostly because his father had threatened to not pay for his gas for the next month, but also on the off chance that Seb did actually show. 

It was a party like every other party. The newest deputy, Parrish, was the one in charge of the Breathalizer, which made Stiles laugh. He would use it on the most random people; he even made Lydia take a test when she came in. Surprisingly she did it with little fanfare; Jackson declared that it was his right to not have to subject himself to such nonsense. Both Danny and Lydia rolled their eyes at this. 

As it neared midnight, everyone got close to their significant others. Scott was bouncing back and forth between Isaac and Kira, as if he couldn’t choose who he wanted to stand next to. Stiles had migrated to the back corner of the room. The doors were guarded by the few deputies that had traded today for being off on Christmas, and the lights dimmed. 

Stiles sighed, his back to the wall. It really wasn’t meant to be, he thought as he took a sip of his punch. Seb really wasn’t interested. He, Stiles, was probably now a running joke between Seb and his friends, like Jared was between him and Scott. They probably read any saved messages aloud, were probably doing so right now over a campfire and drinks. They probably lived in Beacon Valley.

Stiles choked on his drink at that thought.

They probably lived in Beacon Valley. 

He and Seb were the same age.

Their high school burned down. He never mentioned going to private school. 

There was a high chance that Stiles would be coming face to face with Seb himself in six short days. 

He felt his breathing start to quicken, his head start to spin a little bit. He felt a hand grip his shoulder but he couldn’t pull himself together. 

He heard his name, on what felt like was both in the curl of his ear and a million miles away. “Stiles?” The breath that was released from just his name whipped around his outer ear and down his neck and he shivered. “Stiles, are you okay?”

It was Parrish. It was just Parrish. Stiles flexed his hands in a way that reminded him of where he was. He heard the roar of the crowd as they continued their count. They were at thirty seconds now.

“Yeah, sorry. Just a little panic attack, nothing too serious.” Stiles attempted a chuckle. 

Parrish leaned back and raised his eyebrows. 

“Twenty!” The crowd screamed behind them. Scott seemed to have chosen Kira, his arm around her shoulder. He could see Isaac over in another corner with Danny, who also seemed to be single and not interested.

“You sure?” The breath now rippled over his cheek. 

“Yeah, yeah man. I’m totally fine.” Stiles shot the guy a weak smile.

“Ten. Nine.” The crowd roared.

“You gotta go find someone?” Stiles gestured to the rest of the group. “Cutting it pretty close.”

“No,” Parrish breathed, “I’m pretty good here.”

Then as the crowd breathed out a collective, “Happy New Year”, Parrish gave him a kiss. 

On the lips.

“Happy New Year, Stiles.” He said as he smirked and walked away. 

“Were you checking for liquor on my breath?” Stiles called back. Parrish turned around and winked.

This made no sense whatsoever. It had to be the most bizzare night of his life.

Well, right up there with the night that he made Scott jump off of his roof to try and catch a UFO they thought they’d seen. But that was almost ten years ago.

Weirdest thing of Stiles’ adult life. That was good enough.

\---

The next week passed in the usual fashion. Stiles had started to read _Macbeth_ for class, meaning that he read half of it, then watched the second half on Netflix. After that he went through his copy, highlighted and then read the cooler speeches aloud to Scott, who applauded when needed. Then he helped Scott with his own homework.

“I cannot believe I have to write a paper comparing _Othello_ and _Macbeth_ and you get to read Sherlock Holmes and talk about the evolution of his character over the past hundred-ish years.” Stiles grumbled as he thumbed through Scott’s copy of _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_.

“It’s kind of difficult though.” Scott supplemented. “She wants us to pick a favorite and then explain why, as opposed to all of the other choices.”

“And, Scott, you get to watch them. In class. And then have discussions about them. In class. And the paper isn’t due until Spring Break. Which is three months. So you get three months. Of watching Sherlock Holmes. In class. All I might get to do is read aloud from the text and barely get to talk before Lydia cuts in with a much better, much clearer idea than I have.”

Scott shrugged. “Who knows, with these new kids, you all might get a different teacher. Mr. King prefers torturing the honors kids more, doesn’t he?”

They did only have five English teachers for the whole school, and Beacon Valley’s teacher probably was a little more on top of it.

“Yeah, they might. Who knows.” Stiles shuffled around his papers.

“Dude, I know you’re still bummed out about that whole OK Cupid guy, but you’ve gotta just get your head in the game! Speaking of, don’t forget about practice after school tomorrow.”

Stiles groaned and stuck his head into his pillow. 

“Can you give me a ride home?”

Stiles groaned again.

\---

Driving up to school was incredibly uncomfortable the next morning. There was extra traffic coming in from the other side and a police officer standing guard by the entrance to the parking lot. All of the people trying to turn in left (which was the wrong way to get in during the mornings, rule number one of BHHS), were being blocked and diverted to the parking lot across the street. Once Stiles got the gesture to pull in, he took a careful right with his blinker on. However, the person on the left side of the street seemed to think the gesture was for them and almost ran smack into him. In the car were three girls, a smarmy blonde driving what was probably her dad’s Range Rover. 

Fucking Beacon Valley students.

Fed up with snobs and tired enough from regular life, he rolled down his window after an officer had stopped the Range Rover and was writing her a warning. “THIS PARKING IS FOR BHHS STUDENTS ONLY, IDIOT. BESIDES, IF YOU EVEN WENT HERE YOU WOULD KNOW THAT YOU CAN’T MAKE A LEFT HAND TURN INTO THE PARKING LOT IN THE MORNING BECAUSE OF VISIBILITY ISSUES. WELCOME TO FUCKING BEACON HILLS.” 

As he rolled into the parking lot, he heard hollers of agreement from the cars behind him and the parking lot. 

He swore he even heard someone that sounded scarily like Jackson yell “Fucking tell them, Stilinksi!” 

It was going to be a weird day for sure. At least it wasn’t raining.

\---

He had spoken too soon. 

Stiles watched the trickle turn into a downpour as the bell rang for homeroom. Normally they only had homeroom on Wednesdays, but with all of the hub bub they had to have it every day this week until things ‘settled down’. Apparently his outburst had given him a little gravitas, as people flocked around him, leaving a row of desks to his right distinctly empty. Stiles assumed they would have transfer students in homeroom too, but he felt kind of leery being right next to one. 

There was a ruffle at the door and Finstock came in, yelling at people behind him. “No PDA here at Beacon Hills High School. Leave that for after school.” That wasn’t necessarily true, but Finstock was one of those weird teachers who didn’t like seeing that sort of stuff anyway. 

A blonde flounced into the room. She had wild, curly hair, loud red lipstick and it felt like she took up more of the room than she should with her leather jacket and her bustier. It had sleeves though, so Coach couldn’t say anything. She scanned the room, looked at Stiles and immediately slid into the seat next to him. “Hi.” She purred at him, her eyes sparkling.

Wasn’t this the girl that Finstock had caught making out in front of the classroom like, ten seconds ago? Beacon Valley girls were weird. “Uh, hi.” Stiles replied, fiddling with his phone under his desk.

She beamed when he responded, then pulled out a tube of lipstick and a compact and fixed an invisible (to him) mistake with her lipstick. A few others shuffled in after her and the bell rang.

Finstock slammed his door closed and turned to the class.

“Good morning, miscreants. For you … new students, I am Coach Finstock. Not Mr. Finstock, Coach Finstock. Mr. Finstock is my nephew.” A few of the new kids tittered out some fake laughter. “It isn’t a joke.” The room went silent.

“So, a few things. I teach Economics. Macro, micro, regular. I also will now be teaching tenth grade Civics, but since all of you are seniors, none of you should really care. I also coach lacrosse. New kids, I know you were emailed your schedules so make sure you stick to them. We have a pretty easy system, plus the student council bullied me into opening the school yesterday so they could make signs to make your lives easier. I hope you appreciate that. Anyway, old kids, are any of you missing since you all moved seats?” Finstock scanned the seats. 

“No, Coach, we’re all here.” Stiles answered. 

“Thank you Bilinski.” Now Stiles knew he was just doing it to piss Stiles off. “New kids, last names, here or total silence. Got it?” All of them nodded. “Ramirez?” “Here.”

“Ramone?” “Here.”

“Reagan?” “Here.”

“Reyes?” “Here,” the blonde girl purred again. Coach rolled his eyes.

“Rodriguez?” “Here.” 

“Perfect. Now all of you shut up for announcements.” Finstock sat down just as the announcements flicked on and Lydia’s clear voice came over the radio.

“Good morning, Beacon HILLS students and staff.” A smattering of applause came from the old student side of the room, but Stiles just rolled his eyes. Just another school day.

\---

Nobody transferred into his first period, AP Macroeconomics, which meant that Finstock just went off about their midterm and about how ‘none of them were going to get fives, which meant that none of you should take the test in the first place. Fives or nothing, do you understand?’

He then went into a speech from Remember the Titans. Stiles had dozed off about half way through.

Next was Gym, which was just a rehash of what they could and couldn’t do and was then free time. The rain had slowed down, which meant that Stiles and Scott took their crosses and went and threw a ball around for an hour, with Kira as the monkey in the middle.

“Meet any cool people yet?” He asked them as he threw the ball to Scott.

“Nah dude, we even had the same teacher and everything for English. We had to watch the super old Sherlock Holmes too. Did you know that Drew Barrymore’s grandpa was Sherlock at one point?” Scott exclaimed.

“No dude, that’s pretty cool.” Scott was so easily pleased.

Kira, however, was in AP English with him. “I hope we get another teacher. I saw Mr. King in the hallway today and he had already given out three detentions to people. It’s like the spirit of Mr. Harris has entered him.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. Great. 

\---  
Lunch was equally as boring, with everyone squished into the cafeteria. Even what seemed to be similar types had divided off into halves. Jackson, Lydia, and Isaac had decided to sit with Stiles and Scott today, their noses turned up at the varsity jackets of those from Beacon Valley, who seemed to be looking for their own table.

“You guys, I didn’t want to incite a riot inside our own school.” Stiles scoffed as Jackson sneered at a row of athletes passing them.

“I just don’t like the look of those guys. They all look so … snooty.” Jackson said. His tone was as if he put Stiles on his side as opposed to wanting to murder him. 

It was freaky.  
\---

More strange moments happened as they walked towards Chemistry. Lydia grabbed the crook of his arm and hung on; Danny flanked his other side. Stiles wanted to smack his own face and check that he hadn’t been Freaky Friday’d into Jackson’s body, but he saw a cluster of girls down the hall that were heading towards Harris’ old room.

Lydia squeezed his bicep. “Beacon Hills unity.”

Danny replied. “BHHS Pride.”

They both looked at Stiles. “Uh, sure?” He was more concerned with the dark head that was ducking into the guys’ bathroom.

“Stiles, why are those two girls staring at you?” Lydia asked as Danny slung his arm across Stiles’ shoulders.

“Uh …” Stiles looked at the girls in question. Blonde, snotty written “Oh, they were the girls I yelled at this morning. They almost killed me with their Range Rover.”

Lydia stretched her grin wider. “Perfect.”

\---

Their new chemistry teacher ended up being their school’s counselor, Ms. Morrell. Apparently she held a doctorate in chemistry as well as counseling, but preferred people to chemicals. The blonde girl – Argent, Katherine – and the older brunette – Baccari, Julia – tried to edge towards his lab table, but it seemed as if the whole school had rallied around him and was blocking them from even getting close to anyone from Beacon Hills. 

Stiles just saw the glint of evil in their eyes, like they knew something he didn’t, and shuddered, sliding his desk closer to Danny’s.

“What, girls giving you the heebie-jeebies now, Stiles?” Danny joked.

“More and more by the minute.” He replied, texting Scott a SOS.

\---  
Throughout chemistry class, he felt Argent, Katherine and Baccari, Julia, giggling at him. He went so far to hide behind Lydia. It was as if they knew something but no one besides the two of them knew this great secret.

By the time he was rolling up to Mr. King’s regular room, he was feeling a little paranoid. That was probably why he noticed that the name tag had been taken out and a piece of paper with “AP ENGLISH CLASSES ONLY” covered the little window on the door. He looked for anyone and was almost scared out of his skin when Kira poked him in the side.

“Holy shit!” Stiles yelled. 

Kira only giggled, gesturing with her head towards the door.“Spooky.”

“Dun dun dun.” Stiles hummed as he opened the door. 

The desks were in a circle, and it seemed like they were the first people there, though it felt like the walk here had taken forever. Kira dragged Stiles to the back center of the circle, closest to the weird stained glass window. Slowly, others poured in. Lydia took the seat next to Stiles, Danny next to Kira, Isaac awkwardly on Danny’s other side. Jared was there, hovering between picking the desk right next to Isaac or the one two seats away, before Greenburg slid into the one next to Isaac and Jared slumped into the seat closest to the teacher’s desk. A few sat on the other side, but there were four empty desks between Lydia and the door. 

A breath went without any sound until the younger looking girl from the car that morning slid in the door. “AP English Literature and Composition?” She read off of her schedule, then looked up for confirmation.

Lydia acknowledged her coolly. “Yes.”

“Lydia.” Stiles turned and whispered in her ear as the blonde from earlier followed her in and eagerly eyed Stiles. “That’s the third girl from the car earlier.”

“Exactly why to keep her close, Stiles.” Lydia whispered back.

Following the blonde girl were two behemoths, both with Beacon Valley letterman jackets on. The stockier one seemed endeared by … Reyes and followed her, sitting in the chair next to hers and holding her hand.

The second guy was Seb. Besides the letterman jacket, it was the exact outfit he had been wearing in his profile picture, sunglasses included. Stiles’ knee began to bounce. He wanted to get out.

“Stiles,” Kira stage whispered over to him, “are you okay?”

He leaned over to Kira, “Did Scott tell you about that guy I was talking to on the internet?” Kira nodded. “Well, that’s him.”

“The one without the girlfriend, right?”

“Yeah, that one.” Stiles went to say more but he stopped, the eerie feeling that he was being watched coming on. He looked up and shrieked.

A man, no more than thirty five, stood behind him. With medium brown hair and blue eyes, he could have been attractive without that look on his face and his teacher ID badge. 

“Perfect. Welcome to AP Literature and Composition. I am Doctor Peter Hale, and though since you are all adults or almost so, I would prefer you call me Peter. You’ll do so next year in college. While I normally only teach college, I decided to take some time off after finishing my second dissertation and this lovely little fire flung this job right into my lap. The woman before me transferred to another school and Mr. King prefers torturing underclassmen so here we are. 

Before I begin the roll call I just want to clarify that yes, Derek over there and I share a last name and blood. He is my wonderful little nephew. However, this will not be held against you. He will be graded the same way that you all do.” 

Derek. Stiles wasn’t one hundred percent sure which one was Derek, since both new boys had turned to speak to each other.

Dr. Hale – Peter – whatever, went to his desk and sat on top of it. “Okay, wonderful. Roll call. Argent, Allison.” “Here.”

Argent. Stiles wondered if she was just related to the horrible Argent, Katherine from last period or if they were sisters.  


“Egerton, Jared.” “Here.”

“Greenburg, - “ “Here.”

“Okay. Hale, Derek, you’re here.” Stiles scanned over but still couldn’t decipher which one was which. 

“Mahealani, Daniel.” Danny rolled his eyes. “Here.”

“Martin, Lydia.” Lydia raised her hand, wiggling her fingers until Peter met her eyes. “Here.” Peter smiled at her and Stiles felt like he was witnessing something that wasn’t good. He looked to his left but only ended up making eye contact with Seb. Maybe that was still his name. Maybe-Seb raised an eyebrow at him. Stiles looked down at his hands.

“Lahey, Isaac?” “Here.” Isaac said softly.

“Stile-in-sky? Stil-in-ski? Ge-Gee-“

“Stilinski. Stiles Stilinski.” Stiles answers flatly. Peter raises an eyebrow.

“Spunk. I like that in a person.”

“Too much information, dude.” Stiles replied quickly, without thinking, and within moments the whole class, including Peter, are laughing. 

“I have a feeling that you and are going to have a lot of fun this semester, Stiles.” Peter smirks over his notepad.

Stiles leans forward. “Well at least I’m legal.”

Stiles swore that Kira was crying in the seat next to him. Feeling supremely cocky, he even winked at Peter. He heard a cackle from where Erica was sitting, since Lydia would never let herself make such an undignified noise, and the Allison girl seemed to be giggling politely behind her hand. 

“We’ll get back to that eventually. Anyway, Reyes, Erica?”

“Here.”

“Yukimura, Kira?” “Here!” Kira chirped.

“Did I miss anyone?” He scanned the room. Since ‘Derek’ had yet to be identified and Stiles didn’t want to be racist, maybe it was the black guy. Maybe Seb just hadn’t changed his name.

“Me.” Non-Seb said. “You even know me.”

“Oh yes, Mister Boyd. What is your first name, again?” Peter received a flat stare. “I’ll just figure it out later.”

So, Derek Hale was, in fact, not Seb Silver. Seb Silver was a cover so that he, Derek Hale, could torture little people from the other schools. Stiles shot a glance over to Derek, who was looking at his uncle but preternaturally noticed Stiles looking and met his eye again. Stiles gave him the stink eye and reclined in his chair. 

If he wanted to play that game, Sties could totally do it too.

“So, we will be starting this semester by discussing the works of Shakespeare. Unlike a lot of English teachers I know, my undergraduate degree was in Drama so I believe in the credo that Shakespeare is better spoken aloud then read. With such small group of you, only fourteen, my my, we will be doing scenework. We will be working on _Macbeth_ first, since al of you should have read it already. Get out your copies. You will be writing on which scene you wish to perform, which character and why. You have until the end of class.”

Well that was easier than expected.

\---

When the bell rang, Stiles already had his essay torn out of his notebook, free of any of those hanging paper bits, his backpack already zipped up and ready to go. Lydia handed him her essay as he stood up and started to walk over to Peter. Without breaking eye contact, Stiles dropped them onto Peter’s desk, gave a deprecating smile, then turned and walked out of the room with Kira on one side, Lydia on the other, and the burning feeling of ‘Derek’ watching him leave.

Unfortunately he wasn’t that smooth, so he ran directly into Scott after he exited the room, causing them to wiggle precariously towards the ground. Before either of them could reach said destination, Jackson grabbed them and pulled them upright. “Let’s get going to lacrosse practice, guys.” He seemed to sneer very loudly. “The only real sport here at Beacon Hills High School.”

Stiles turned to ask Jackson why he was acting so weird when he saw ‘Derek’ again, holding a basketball, watching with a confused expression as Stiles walked down the hallway, Boyd and Erica surrounding him. Noticing his stares, Jackson dropped both him and Scott and marched again, Danny almost sprinting to catch up with him.

“Dude, Stiles, who was that girl that was walking out of your classroom?” Scott murmured in his ear as Stiles turned around.

“You mean Kira?” Stiles replied, rolling his eyes.

“No, the one with the curly hair.” Scott turned around, almost like he was going to point at someone. 

Stiles slapped his hand down. “It’s rude to point. It was probably Allison.”

“Allison.” Scott breathed out, his voice caressing that name like a parent holding their baby for the first time.

“Scott, dude, don’t you already have a girlfriend?” Stiles sighed.

“No, Kira and I are just friends.” Scott stopped, turning all the way around. “Wait, isn’t that the guy from OK Cupid?”

Stiles turned back to Scott and sighed. “Yes! This is why we need to get to the locker room so I can actually talk to you about it.”

“One final thing.” Scott whined, then took his fingers, pointed at his eyes, then flipped them and pointed them at the unsuspecting ‘Derek’, who was now starting to look a little angry. Although Scott and Stiles weren’t the scrawny sixteen year olds they were when they tried out for the lacrosse team, Derek still looked like he could pulverize them.

“Okay time to go now!” Stiles pretty much screamed as he pulled Scott towards the locker rooms.

This was just a weird day.

\---

As Stiles started to change for practice, a thought flew threw his mind.

“Holy shit!” He exclaimed, accidentally kicking a shoe off and knocking some kid over. “Hale!”

“No, it looks like the rain has died down, Stiles.” Scott replied, squinting out the window.

“No, numbskull, Hale. As in, the founders of Beacon Valley Hale. As in, Doctor Peter Hale, who I made sexual innuendos towards. As in Derek Hale.” 

Derek Hale. He had been punk’d on OK Cupid by Derek Hale. Son of Talia Hale, the mayor of Beacon Valley. Fuck this made his life difficult.

“What?” Scott exclaimed as Stiles groaned.

“I’ll tell you on the drive home.”


	3. The Snag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Sorry it took me two days, y'all. I have a feeling it might expand into six chapters. I feel like I have so much detail that I haven't even hit yet. I am also verbose, in case you haven't noticed.
> 
> I'll be in and out of town for work, so my next update will come (at the latest) on Sunday. 
> 
> As always, please leave feedback! I love it, it gets me going. Also, translations at the end. Sorry my Spanish kind of sucks!
> 
> Love and light, y'all!

Strangely – more like luckily – no one from the Beacon Valley lacrosse team showed up to practice. After a few minutes of fuming from Jackson about ‘they think they’re better than us’ and the regular team pushing each other around on the field, Jackson got a look in his eye.

“Coach.”

“Whittemore.”

“We should do the school cheer.”

No one liked the school cheer. Even the cheerleaders had given up on using it and always convince the principal to let them chant ‘Be Aggressive’ or something equally as pedantic. 

Stiles slept during most pep rallies, okay?

“Whittemore, you know as well as I do that no one even knows the words to that … out of date song.”

“I’ll find them! And I’ll learn them. And then I’ll teach them to everyone!” Stiles swore that he could see the wheels turning behind Jackson’s eyes. 

“Okay. Well since none of those Beacon Valley punks decided to show, I guess we need to start with our regular practices. Give me twenty laps, except for you, McCall, you –“

“Do the cardio routine I have memorized?” Scott replied.

Coach tweeted his whistle. “Get to it!”

\---

By the time practice was over, Jackson had copies of the school song on freshly printed paper and handed each and every single person a copy, shaking their hands gravely after they took them. It was like they had accidentally joined a secret society.

Stiles and Scott changed quickly; Stiles, so he wouldn’t get caught up in any of Jackson’s shenanigans, Scott so he could run and stick his bike in the back of the Jeep. Scott, surprisingly, beat Stiles and took off with Stiles’ keys to get them out of here as quick as possible.

Stiles, as usual, got distracted and was playing on his phone when he heard lockers rattling. He looked around but they weren’t the ones around him, on the side the lacrosse team dominated. Their names were duct taped onto them so no one would try and take them. It was January, so it was probably the basketball team, because this is when the seasons overlapped. Stiles turned back to his phone for a second before he heard an unfamiliar deep voice. “Aren’t there any open lockers in this place?”

Before he could think twice, he heard his own voice say, “Try the ones next to Coach Finstock’s office.” 

A few slams and thumps later and a someone softer “thank you!” came from the other side of the room. 

“You’re welcome.” Stiles called back, then looked up to see Scott staring at someone, Stiles’ keys in his hand. “Scott, man, who are you staring at?” Stiles asked, snatching his keys back.

If Scott had been some sort of dog, he would have been growling by this point. “OK Cupid guy.” Scott said softly. 

Stiles turned and realized his fuck up. He hadn’t been talking to just the basketball team, he had been talking to the Beacon Valley basketball team. Of who he recognized precisely two – Boyd, Vernon and Hale, Derek. With them was a skinny, skeevy sort of fellow and a set of twins, who were short but incredibly muscular. 

“Oh, uh, hi.” Stiles started to pull at Scott’s arm. “Welcome to Beacon Hills, don’t worry, no one will touch your stuff in here, I’m Stiles, this is Scott and we were just leaving, right, Scott?” Stiles had seen Scott’s soft side, like when he was around animals, but he also remembered the time that Scott had tried to defend Stiles from Jackson in the second grade and had broken his wrist for the trouble.

And Jackson and Scott had been the same size at that point in time. Scott was not the same size as these guys by a longshot.

“Okay well it’s time to go now, nice seeing everyone, see you tomorrow probably bye now!” Stiles finished, pulling Scott behind him and pretty much sprinting towards his car.

\---

Once they had made it safely to the car and had pulled out of the parking lot, Stiles took a deep breath in. “Scott, man, you can’t just challenge these randos for me, dude.”

“I can and I will!” Scott said, viciously texting someone. “I mean, that guy just … just used you emotionally then took off when you actually wanted to meet up like … who does that? Who spends two weeks talking to a person all day every day to just … dump them on the day that they realize they’re going to be going to the same school with the other person. That is just so awful!”

Stiles paused. He had totally spaced on the fact that the day ‘Seb’ – Derek, his name is Derek – stopped talking to him was the day that the school announcement came out. Maybe Derek just didn’t want to be outed. That would make total sense.

“Scott, what if he isn’t out yet, to his family and stuff?” Stiles suggested. Scott was normally so caring about that sort of thing.

Scott deflated. “I guess so. And that makes sense, why he would use a fake name and everything.”

“So we just, y’know, avoid him and act like nothing happened. Water under the bridge unless he brings it up.” Stiles said. 

“This is incredibly mature of you.” Scott pointed out.

“I’m not going to be his friend, Scotty, no matter if he asks or not. I’m just not going to be an awful person. And if he brings up the website, I’ll take that fucker to pound town.” Scott laughed. “Verbally! I’ll give him a lashing. With my tongue.”

“Dude, just stop. I know what you’re trying to say. At least you only have one class with him.” Scott pointed out as Stiles slowed down in front of his house.

“Yeah,” Stiles muttered, “so far.”

\---

The next morning went by as well as expected. Stiles got up on time, ate breakfast, managed to not almost get hit while pulling into school, and got to homeroom in time to barricade himself in the back corner away from Reyes, though her eyes probed him the whole entire time.

First period was, luckily, AP European, and only Allison joined that class. Sadly, with the five people in said class, she decided to sit in front of Stiles and next to Lydia. However, when they broke into small groups of three to work, Allison turned directly to Stiles.

“I just wanted to say that I am so sorry about yesterday. Kate – she’s my aunt, yeah I know it’s weird, but she’s not the … greatest person. She wasn’t always like this - but it doesn’t matter and you shouldn’t have got caught in the crossfire. I totally told her to stop by the way.”

After really taking a good hard look at her, there was no way that Stiles could not accept her apology. Her eyes were wide and looked truly sorry, her mouth pressed together firmly as if she was ready to accept a verbal smackdown. 

Lydia kicked his shin, which spurned him on. “I totally accept your apology. I’m sorry to tell you but she and her little friend Julia kind of give me the creeps.”

“Stiles.” Lydia whispered angrily at him, but they both had a sense of calm when Allison began to laugh. Of course it was politely, her hand over her mouth to hide her big smile, but it was still laughter.

Stiles felt a lot better about himself. At least he could have one friend from the other school.

“So, Allison, what lunch do you have today?” Lydia asked.

“Uh, B lunch? In the middle of class, that’s kind of weird, isn’t it?” She said, looking between them. “At Beacon Valley we only had one lunch period.”

Both Lydia and Stiles shrugged their shoulders. B lunch was just a way of life; most teachers had blow off classes during that block if they had B lunch anyway. 

“Perfect. Would you like to sit with us today?” Lydia said, smiling.

“Us? What are you talking about, Lydia?” Lydia kicked him, this time with the point of her pumps very close to his crotch. “Oh yes lunch of course.”

“Uh, okay.” Allison agreed. “So I think we should start on the assignment …”

\---

Second period was the only AP Stiles shared with Scott: Spanish. However, there were two teachers at the front of the class when Stiles slipped in: Senora Ramirez and a young woman who looked vaguely familiar. Scott was in the front row, chatting with Danny, his backpack holding Stiles’ regular seat. 

Before Stiles could get a word in edgewise about the weird first period he had, he noticed Scott glaring. “Dude, what in the …” He turned and then saw Derek walk in the door. Stiles pitched his voice lower. “Scott, calm the fuck down.” 

Danny glanced back and forth between them. “What’s wrong with him?”

Stiles sighed. He was working on coming out to everyone as bi, but of all people to come out to first besides Scott, Danny wasn’t the worst choice. Stiles picked up his bag and shifted to the seat next to Danny. Some other person from Beacon Valley sat in Stiles’ old seat, but it was okay. Stiles had to explain.

Stiles leaned over to Danny, who leaned in. “I, uh, I’m,” Stiles looked at Scott, who nodded, “I’m bi. And I know that isn’t a big deal or whatever..”

“Stiles, it is!” Danny took his hand. “Stiles, any sort of coming out is a big deal.”

“That’s not all. Okay, alright,” Stiles started to tap his fingers on the desk, “so over break I went on OK Cupid, because I wanted a date, y’know? Any date. And it would be easier to be contacted by anyone on the internet, because, y’know, I talk a lot and that is just easier for me to ease into meeting someone? You know me, Danny.” Danny nodded. “And well, Derek, he was on OK Cupid, and he didn’t use his real name at all and we talked for like two weeks straight and he was so great but he … he just didn’t want to meet me. He deleted his whole profile when I asked to meet him and now it’s just awkward.”

Danny pulled back and looked over Stiles’ head, toward the back of the room where Derek and one of the freaky twins from yesterday were sitting. “Strange. I heard Hale was a cool guy.”

Before Stiles could respond, the bell rang.

“Hola, senoras e senoritas. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Senora Ramirez and I teach AP Spanish V here at Beacon Hills. Although I know that those of you from Beacon Valley are self-contained, Senorita Hale has volunteered herself to … help me for the next couple of days so you all have a friendly face.” Señora Ramirez seemed to be wincing.

“Hola a todos! Yo soy Senorita Laura. Ese es mi hermano Derek.” Stiles knew she looked familiar! She looked so similar to that mean mug. “Tengo un titlo en Espanol a Stanford, e –“ (1)

“Thank you Senorita! Today we are going to be introducing ourselves to the new members of the class, since we seem to have exactly six new students. I will be pairing you up and there will be no switching, Senor Stilinski and Senor McCall.” Scott and Stiles looked guiltily at each other. “Okay, so by first name, Daniel con Ethan, Scott con Maria, Stiles con … con Derek, Stiles,” Stiles wanted to slam his head onto the desk. Instead he turned and did a little wave at Derek. “Alright, vamos, estudiantes.”

Stiles froze for a moment. What did he do? Did he go there, did Derek come here? He felt his chest tighten up. 

Danny whispered in his ear, “Don’t worry, I’ll send the big lug over here.”

“Daniel, en espanol por favor.” Señora Ramirez chided. 

“Lo siento, Señora.” Danny said, face faux-contrite. Danny then strode over to Ethan, said something to Derek that made him move to where Danny had been sitting. Scott, all the while, had moved over and was now chatting amiably to Maria. 

“Eh, hola.” Stiles said to Derek awkwardly.

“Hola.” Derek answered softly. His voice was not as deep as Stiles had expected, but it didn’t matter that much. Seb always was sweet in his word usage.

Derek, not Seb, he scolded himself. Seb didn’t exist. 

“Uh, well, uh,” Stiles glanced over to Señora Ramirez, who was chatting with Ramona from their school and another girl. “Yo soy Stiles, tengo dieciocho años. Soy hijo unico. Mi mejor amigo es Scott alla. Estoy pensado en ir a Berekely en el otoño.” Stiles had only found out last week but he was pretty damn proud of it. “Y usted, Derek?” (2)

Derek looked a little freaked out. Stiles was unsure if it was because Stiles spoke very smoothly or because of what Stiles had said. “Yo soy Derek, uh, Hale.” Stiles was immediately embarrassed – Derek’s Spanish was so much better than his. “Yo tengo dieciocho años tambien. Tengo dos hermanas,” he gestured at Laura,” Laura es una de ellas. No sé donde me voy a la Universidad, probalamente Stanford.” Derek said it like it was already decided for him. His voice had a nice cadence, Stiles decided. He could see himself listening to Derek talk for hours. (3)

It seemed like Derek had chosen to stop talking. “Tienes un mejor amigo? Una novia?” (4)

Derek winced. “Mi mejor amigo es Boyd, de la classe de Inglés? No tengo novia. Vos si?” (5)

Stiles’ eyes widened. This is something he had told Seb/Derek; “Nunca.” (6)

He was surprised to see Derek’s eyes widen. Yeah, that’s right, dumbass. I used my real name and everything. 

Before Stiles could say anything, they switched.

\---

The period passed quickly, rotating through all of the new kids, then pulling out copies of ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ and assigning reading due on Thursday. Scott and Stiles walked towards their study hall, heads together.

“Dude, Derek wasn’t as awful as I thought he was going to be.”

“No, he really wasn’t.” Stiles sighed. He then remembered. “Oh yeah, Lydia is eating lunch with us today.”

“Why?”

“She invited Allison to sit with her and I guess she wants me to torture as well? Which I guess means you are sitting with her too.”

Scott breathed out, “Allison.”

“I had hoped you had forgotten about that. I mean, she’s nice but you already have Isaac and Kira.”

Scott scoffed. “What does that even mean?”

“It means, Scott, that you shouldn’t add a third person to your little harem of dates. You have to pick one to go to prom with anyway! ONE!” Stiles exclaimed as they reached their destination.

“I’m not leading anyone on.” Scott said, almost innocently. He then waved at someone. Stiles turned around. “Hey Isaac!”

Stiles sighed. “This is exactly what I mean.”

\---

The first half of study hall went by quickly – Stiles started on his translation and before he knew it, the bell for lunch was ringing. He pulled out his lunchbox and waited for Scott as he fiddled with his own stuff. Before he knew it, he was being pulled out of the class by Lydia. Lydia and Allison were also in their study hall, having had French the period before. 

Lydia claimed a table near the window and sat down. Stiles looked around, unsure where to sit until she looked down at the seat next to her, then back up. She then gestured at Scott to sit across from him. Stiles sat down quickly and opened his lunch bag, pulling out his lunchable, pretzels and apple. He turned to Lydia, who looked at him as he opened the package of his lunchable, then looked down at it and up at him.

He sighed and handed her his mini Crunch bar. She smiled and Stiles started to chomp at his apple. 

Allison sat down a minute later, her regulation school lunch looking … sad. 

“Sorry, at school the lunches are … better than these.” She said shyly. She turned to Scott. “Hi, I’m Allison.” She offered him her hand.

He shook it enthusiastically. “Scott. I’m Scott. Nice to meet you.”

She smiled sweetly at him. “Nice to meet you too, Scott.”

Lydia clicked her heels and Scott turned to her, then to his lunch. He knew better than to talk over Lydia. 

“So, Allison, tell us a little bit about you. Your friends, your classmates, anything really.”

Allison looked down, awkwardly shy, and then back up. “Well, I moved here around Thanksgiving. My dad and my aunt aren’t really close but my grandfather, well he was really sick and so we had to move back to watch my aunt. She’s only eighteen, like me, so we had to make sure she’s safe and everything. I, uh, didn’t really get a chance to make any friends back at Beacon Valley because … well …”

Allison looked around, to make sure no one was paying attention to them, then leaned in conspiratorially. “My aunt, Kate, she had this really nasty breakup and her and the guy’s other ex-girlfriend, they’re kind of the mean girls at the school. And since I have to be around Kate, people just kind of associated me with her, even though we don’t hang out. She used to be so cool but now .. now she’s kind of .. awful. Her and Julia Baccari.” Allison met Lydia’s eyes. “She is really awful.”

“So, who did she date?” Lydia asked, nonchalantly. 

“Derek Hale? He plays basketball?” She looked around, “He takes AP Spanish, he’s very quiet.”

“Tall, dark, handsome?” Lydia said calmly.

‘Yeah that’s him! He’s pretty cool. At least I think so. I’m not really close to anyone.”

“You can hang with us!” Scott said, enthusiastically. “Right? You want to?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.” Allison smiled at him.

So, Stiles said as he bit into a pretzel, Baccari, Julia and Argent, Katherine were awful people. From Allison, her niece. Stiles felt like he was missing something.

\---

Because of the popularity of Calculus, he had the same class as normal. Boring, boring, boring. Math math math. Lydia talking over the teacher, blah blah.

Now, onto practice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - Hello everyone, I'm Miss Laura. That's my brother, Derek. I have a degree in Spanish from Stanford."
> 
> 2 - I'm Stiles, I'm eighteen. I'm an only child. My best friend is Scott over there. I'm going to Berkeley in the fall. And you, Derek?
> 
> 3- I'm Derek, I'm eighteen too. I have two sisters - Laura is one of them. I have no idea where I'm going to college, probably Stanford.
> 
> 4 - Best friend? Girlfriend?
> 
> 5 - My best friend is Boyd, from English class. No girlfriend. You?
> 
> 6\. - Never.


	4. Like Shooting _______ in a Barrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles isn't as slow as some people seem to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Hey all, I knew I said probably Sunday, but work got slow so here we are! 
> 
> I want to people to remember that sometimes Catfishing happens for no apparent reason, and especially teens can be random and weird about it. Sometimes there is no A - B for why they do it.
> 
> I've added one more chapter, because I didn't expect this one to be so long and I feel like there are some loose ends that would take two chapters up.
> 
> Comments are always welcome. Hope you enjoy - if you don't, just shoot me a line.

Things just kept getting stranger and stranger. Boyd showed up for lacrosse practice that day, a note from the Beacon Valley basketball coach asking Finstock to at least give him a chance.

Coach did, and Greenburg took his fateful seat on the bench. Stiles stared at his old home, some sophomore staring at him inquisitively. He shook himself back into the present.

Just another day.

\---

The next day was a sign that things were going to fall into a routine. This time Reyes was already in homeroom when he got to the room. Boyd flanked her on one side, softly talking to her but he packed up as soon as Stiles stepped in the room. She patted the seat next to her. 

“Are you going to kill me?” Stiles whispered at her when he slammed into the seat.

“Why would I do that, Stiles?” She sounded amused. Not in the way that Lydia often sounded haughtily amused, as if she knew something more that Stiles did. She seemed genuinely happy and interested in him. 

It was worse in some way.

“I don’t know, you seek me out, your bigger than me boyfriend randomly joins the lacrosse team after your two days of staring at me. I’m worried. All of your friends are bigger and scary.” That last part came out kind of squeaky.

She laughed. At him. She laughed. 

“I’m just intrigued by you. I used to live here, y’know. In Beacon Hills. We were never in the same class but you used to crash the chess club in elementary school all of the time. I was only allowed to go because it was some place my parents could come with me, it was before school and it didn’t involve physical contact. You used to run in, play a quick game of chess with whoever didn’t have a partner and you would always beat them, then you would run back to your mom’s room. You stopped, right before my family moved to Beacon Valley.” Her voice got progressively softer.

Right around the time that he stopped terrorizing the chess club was when his mom went into the hospital. Stiles started to scratch his fingernails across the desktop. 

“You know, I’ve always wanted to be your friend.” She said. Stiles looked up. “I used to have epilepsy and I was really shy and then suddenly I was in a different city and I was getting better and I never forgot you, Stilinski.”

“Well, Reyes, let’s give it a shot.” Stiles offered her his hand. She shook it.

The bell rang.

\---

Econ was boring; Coach went off on some tangent about the stock market in accordance with astrological signs and Stiles just zoned out. 

P.E. involved doing Tai Chi, which was incredibly weird but also something Coach probably suggested, so Stiles just tried his damndest to bend in ways his body wasn’t meant to.

This also meant he had time to really consider his life. He had a bat bout of insomnia the night before and he had stayed up watching reruns of ‘Catfish’ on TV, and he felt so bad for those people. They just got strung along and then one day they find out the person that they’re talking to doesn’t exist. 

Wait a minute, he thought to himself, wait a damn minute. What if – 

Someone blew a whistle and Stiles fell over, losing his train of thought.

\---  
Lunch was stranger than before. As he walked toward the cafeteria, he noticed Parrish standing there, his hand on his belt. When he noticed Stiles, he straightened up. 

“Stilinski.” He called almost cheekily down the hall.

“Uh, Deputy Parrish, how can I help you?” Stiles looked around and found Lydia hovering at his elbow. “This is Lydia.”

Lydia offered her hand and Parrish shook it gently, wiggling his eyebrows. God that guy was a flirt. “Lydia Martin.”

“Jordan Parrish, lovely to meet you. I’m just here to trade lunches with Stiles.” Jordan held out a paper bag. “You grabbed your dad’s this morning, and he said, and I quote, ‘though I would love to eat this pizza lunchable, I know I wouldn’t hear the end of it’ unquote.” 

Stiles opened his backpack and scrabbled through it to pull out his – mostly unharmed – brown paper bag. “Thanks for bringing it down, man. I know it’s been like, a million years since you’ve had to come here – “

“Try three weeks,”

“ - but I really do appreciate it. Plus I have Reece’s in there and if my dad had seen that, he would have totally kept it.” Stiles grins, opening the bag and seeing the applesauce he had placed over his Reece’s still in its place.

“No problem. It’s been a slow day at work. Stiles, Lydia.” He nodded then went towards the exit.

“Bye!” Stiles called as they headed into the cafeteria.

As soon as Jordan was out of sight, Lydia dragged him towards him and Scott’s table and made him sit down. She then made Scott move with her eyes, forcing him across the table. This left Scott next to Jackson, both staring rudely at them. 

“So, Stiles, tell me more about Jordan.” The name slid out of her mouth like she was talking about a kinky sex game.

“Uh, well, Deputy Parrish started working for my dad six months ago. He’s, uh, twenty four I think? His birthday is in April. His family’s from Beacon Hills; he was in the Middle East with the Army for a while, did a little traveling. Besides that, I don’t know, he has okay taste in music? He’s my dad’s favorite deputy?” Stiles unwrapped his Reece’s and dug in.

“Well I mean, I saw you two kissing at the New Years Party.” Lydia said nonchalantly, opening Stiles’ lunchable and taking his Crunch bar again.

Stiles started to choke on his Reece’s. 

“What? You clearly liked it.” Lydia stated, as if it was all normal to talk about someone getting kissed at a party by someone they aren’t dating and that they aren’t out publically.

Stiles swallowed as quickly as he could, then with raspy peanut butter breath he shot out, “I have no idea why that happened! We were just talking and then he kissed and ran.”

“So you two aren’t anything?” Lydia said, biting into the Crunch bar.

“No! No no. He is six years older than me, he works for my dad of all people, and he is so much more mature than I am. If he was gonna date anyone our age he’d probably have to date someone super smart, mature and confident. Like you, Lydia!” Stiles finished, then realized what he had said. “Not that you need another boyfriend, you have Jackson over there and he’s … so …”

“Quit while you’re ahead there, Stiles.” Lydia said, “Though he is quite a specimen, are you sure you don’t want anything to go on?”

“Yeah. Can’t really bring a twenty four year old to Prom, right?” Stiles said, going back to his lunch.

“No you can’t! It’s against the rules.” Scott states proudly. Everyone looked at him. “I was reading the tickets during my anatomy class earlier.”

Stiles nodded and offered him a fist bump. Scott grinned and responded in kind.

“So now that that show of strange male bonding is over, Stiles, are you really not seeing anyone?” Lydia prompted.

“Uh, no? I mean, I guess not. I’m uh, bi, too.” Stiles stuttered out.

Lydia rolled her eyes in a fashion that said that no one really cared, Stiles, shut up. “There are plenty of men interested in dating men at our school, and women in men, and I’m sure there is someone out there for you. I mean Scott has options, you should too.”

Scott gave Stiles a look that said, should I be offended? Stiles shrugged. “There was this guy over break but he wasn’t really super into me. But I think that might have actually been a joke? Like that TV show, what’s it called, _Catfish_?”

“You think you got Catfished?” Lydia said. “By who, someone we know? Clearly it wasn’t any of us.” Lydia gestured to Danny and Jackson, who both raised their hands up in surrender.

“I don’t know specifics yet, but when I do I’ll tell you.” Stiles said, shrugging. “I just figured it out last period.”

Lydia squinted, like she was attempting to read Stiles’ mind. “You’ll just tell me later, then.”

\--- 

 

Chemistry was weird, in ways that Stiles hadn’t imagined. Argent, Katherine and Baccari, Julia sat down on either side of Stiles and began to talk to him. 

“So, Stilinski, I like your, uh, beauty marks.” Argent states.

“Thank you? I guess?”

“I’m Kate.” Stiles just glared at her. “That’s Julia.” Stiles rolled his eyes and glared at her too. “We were wondering if you would be interested in – “

“He will not be interested in anything that you two have to offer him.” Lydia said, appearing out of nowhere. “And excuse you …”

“Kate.” Her words had an icy tone now.

“Kate. I’m sure you’ve heard of the unwritten rule about not stealing a student’s seat when you transfer in during the middle of the year. If you would please.” Now that was the biggest lie Stiles had ever heard, but the staring contest that followed was also terrifying. 

Lydia gestured to someone else and Danny plopped down to where Julia had been. He then got out hand sanitizing wipes and scrubbed the desk down. 

“I don’t like the sight of those two.” Lydia commented. “And beauty marks? That is such a random thing to comment on. They’re just moles.”

_I like your beauty marks_ Seb had said. Yet Derek didn’t seem to acknowledge that he had ever seen Stiles before in his life, these two were Derek’s exes, they seemed to be highly interested in him. They would have had access to photos of Derek, know his hobbies, his likes, dislikes, family, etc.

“I don’t like it.” Stiles said to Lydia after a few seconds. “Remember what I said about – “ he was cut off by the bell ringing.

\---

While Stiles did not miss Mr. Harris in the slightest, he had no idea that he would ever consider the guy’s class to be easy. Compared to Ms. Morrell’s, Stiles felt like classes, the actual classwork, with Harris was like walking on flat cement. Ms. Morrell was like running uphill, without shoes, over thorns. But she herself was super nice and helpful in her teaching methods. Stiles only felt like half of his brain was melting out. 

Walking towards Peter Hale’s class, he could feel the rest of it oozing out.

It wasn’t until he was situated in his seat and playing with his copy of _Macbeth_ that he remembered he was on to something the night before. That and he looked up and made eye contact with Derek Hale, who was glaring at him. Stiles waved, very softly, and Derek looked behind him before turning back to Stiles and timidly waving back.

“Okay, so what was that?” Lydia said, leaning over to Stiles. 

“Oh, we got partnered up in Spanish class yesterday. It was really funny, actually, his sister is the assistant to the teacher and man is she something.” Stiles stated.

“And that’s all?” Lydia said, her finger tracing the edge of his desk.

“For now.” Stiles reiterated. In the deepest parts of his mind, he was starting to hope that he had been Catfished. Derek seemed a little rough around the edges, but some things he did just were enamoring. Stiles wanted to know why he was confused at a little friendliness, why he spoke Spanish so well. Those are things that you wouldn’t be able to put into a fake profile, things you only know by being that person. 

Lydia raised an eyebrow but settled back. “Okay.”

Peter swept into the room, counted that all of the students were in the room, and then slammed the door behind him. “Okay, children, I have all of your papers.” Off the top he slapped Derek’s down onto his desk, then Erica’s, then began to haphazardly wander around the circle. “I was very impressed by these essays, class. I felt like by reading them,” he handed Kira hers politely, then turned back towards Greenburg, “I got to know each of you a little bit better. This is a good thing because before we move on to _Othello_ , we are going to reenact Macbeth itself.” He offered Stiles his, then pulled back when Stiles went to take it. When Stiles didn’t fight for it, he placed it into Stiles’ waiting hand.

“Due to the fact that some of you are a little bit more passionate about the play than others, I have preassigned you roles based on your writing style, character and whether I think you can talk the talk, if I do say so. Alright, open your books and, wait, did anyone borrow a school copy?” No one raised their hands, “Wonderful. Well, write down on your index who is who. 

We’ll be going alphabetically, so Allison will be the First Witch and Lady Macduff. Boyd, you’ll be Banquo and Fleance. Jared, since you talked so much about little characters and their needed lines, you will be everyone who has two lines or under, so get to that. You’ll also be all of the murderers. Greenburg, you’ll be Siward and Young Siward. Derek, you’ll be Macbeth,” Stiles saw Derek rolling his eyes as if he was trying to communicate with God, “Daniel, you’ll be playing Duncan, Lydia will be Macduff and the Third Witch, if that’s alright?” He raised an eyebrow. She shrugged, but her mouth seemed to give away that she was excited. It seemed Peter didn’t give a damn about gender.

“Isaac will be Lennox, Stiles will be Lady Macbeth,”

“What?” Stiles said, the words leaving his lips before he could stop them.

“Why, Stiles, you wrote all about how the true villain was Lady Macbeth and you already started your paper pretty much in your in-class essay. How could I not ask you to be Lady Macbeth? You have a better grip on her than anyone else in class.” Stiles shrugged awkwardly. He liked a strong lady, what could he say? “Plus Lydia wrote more heavily on Macduff and with clearer points, so she was right for that role, and he’s the only other one I could see you as.”

“Not as Macbeth?” Stiles asked. Peter tapped his mouth, its smirk already perfect, and kept going.

“Erica, you’ll be Malcolm, Donaldbain and the Second Witch, and Kira, you’ll be playing the rest of the Scottish noblemen and Hecate. 

Now, this partners Erica and Daniel, Lydia and Allison,” they both looked smugly at one another, almost like they had planned it, “ Boyd and Isaac, Jared and Greenburg, and Stiles and Derek. Kira, join Erica and Daniel for me.”

Everyone moved, and since Allison and Lydia had shoved their desks together and Kira and Danny were already sitting next to each other, Stiles grabbed his stuff and walked over to Derek. He set his things down carefully on Boyd’s desk. Derek was flipping through his copy with one hand, texting with the other.

“So …” Stiles said, his leg smacking softly at the bottom of his desk.

Derek looked up at Stiles angrily. “So.”

“Can I, uh, do something? To make this less awkward. I would rather not have you hate me.”

Derek sighed and his shoulders deflated. “I’m not – I don’t hate you. I’m just mad. Peter is making fun of me.”

“How?” Stiles said, his head tilted to the side. Derek looked a little constipated. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

‘No, I’m not … not wonderful with words, okay?” Stiles nodded, and Derek looked up to the ceiling for a moment, then back down. “And Peter read my essay and naturally he thinks ‘oh, perfect, time to make Derek a laughingstock and make him Hamlet in my class, where he can’t even ask to change because then I’ll never hear the end of it’.” Derek snorted air out of his nose, kind of like a ramped up bull. In another situation Stiles would have found it hysterical.

“Can I read yours? At least scan it, so I see why he wants to put us together.” Derek sighed but pushed his paper towards Stiles, who scooped it up automatically. 

Stiles scanned and noticed that though Derek used the notebook paper that came in packs as opposed to notebook paper from notebooks. He wrote in a surprisingly elegant cursive, his letters kissing each other as they flowed from line to line. Derek, for all of his huffing and puffing, did actually write about the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and pointed out how Macbeth was a prototype for the Byronic Hero. Though Stiles knew that there probably was some family rivalry or other crap going on, he could see why Peter paired him and Derek together. Their papers were complementary. 

“Well I had never thought about Macbeth as a Byronic hero before.” Stiles said amiably. 

Derek gave him a look, then looked down at his paper. “My family, they … they kind of joke about me being a Byronic hero.”

“Why?”

Derek shrugged, then looked away. “I just do, apparently.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Okay then. So we’re going to spend a lot of time talking to each other, so, friends?” Stiles offered Derek his hand.

Derek looked at the hand, then up at Stiles, then shook the hand offered. “Friends.”

It was at that moment Stiles knew that Derek wasn’t who he met online. This person was … different, in an element that Stiles couldn’t explain. Derek, in his touch and style and presentation, was someone Stiles wouldn’t have got to talk so quickly. Derek was confident, but he was so anti-social that he would never put himself on a dating website. Derek was someone with a lock over his mouth, over his heart, one Stiles was now determined to unlock.

He also knew that he could turn the tables on those who had definitely Catfished him. He just needed Lydia’s help. 

“So,” Peter clapped his hands together, “let’s get started.”


	5. Reeling it in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Sorry this has taken forever, I just forgot I had a huge project to finish for work and it's been taking a good 8-10 hours a day. 
> 
> This chapter is shorter and kind of feels like I'm cheating out. I might add a seventh chapter (I know, I hate when authors do that) but I haven't quite figured out a few details and I feel like two short chapters might be better than one long one that takes forever? 
> 
> Anyway, all comments are great! I love reading them. Thanks for reading.

Luckily, it was Wednesday, which meant that they didn’t have practice. This meant that if Stiles could get Lydia to hang out after school with him, they could probably figure out a way to get back at those idiots.

However, Stiles was stuck with Derek, and he had a feeling Peter was one of those teachers that was very anti-phone and would probably would take his phone away and embarrass him for the rest of class by making him do something stupid. 

And not like, put on an Elizabethan dress and run around the hallways of BHHS (because that wouldn’t be too embarrassing to begin with), but something evil.

In that moment, he looked at Peter, who was looking gleefully back at him.

Yeah he wasn’t going to take that risk.

Instead he turned to Derek. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how well do you and Peter get along?”

Stiles could hear Derek’s eyes roll into the back of his head. It was so painful that Stiles winced.

“Peter and I … don’t really get along. He’s kind of …” Derek looked at Peter, then made eye contact with Stiles.

“An asshole?” Stiles finished.

Derek’s eyes bugged out and made an aborted gesture with his hand. “Peter can hear everything. See everything. I have no idea how he got to teach here but he’s going to make this semester awful.”

“Why, because he’s making you talk? All those long soliloquies and monologues and shit.” Derek glared at him. “What, I assumed you don’t like to talk if you’re a Byronic hero.”

“This is going to be awful.” Derek looked back down at his paper.

“For you or in general?” Stiles asked, and Derek glared at him again. This was going so well. “So, I need to talk to Lydia, just for like, a second, totally no longer than that and I was wondering what the best way to go about that was?”

“You can’t wait?” Derek deadpanned.

Stiles wanted to scream at him, _well this is about you anyway!_ but he was pretty sure that if he ever, ever wanted to go on an actual date with Derek, he was going to have to handle this without Derek knowing at all.

Ironically, his salvation came via Peter, who had swept over during Stiles’ dramatic pause. “Well, gentlemen, are we having any trouble? Any nagging little questions you have before we start down this road of intrigue that should take up the next week of class?”

Peter’s eyes seemed to get wider and wider as he talked. This was Stiles’ chance. “I, uh, actually was wondering if I could ask Lydia and Allison what direction they’re coming from? As the two leading couples, I feel like it is important that we know how to react to the other.”

Peter tapped his chin. “Hmmm, well, Stiles, since you asked, you may go talk to Lydia and Allison, but I’m going to have to ask you to not tell Derek.”

Stiles almost asked why, but then, he figured leading Peter on and building his ego up might do better than getting into a spirited discussion (i.e. an argument) about _Macbeth_. “It would make some sense that I would know their motivation but Derek wouldn’t.”

Peter grinned from ear to ear. “I truly enjoy your presence in my class, Stiles.”

 _You freak me the fuck out_ Stiles thought to himself, but did not verbalize it. Instead he slid out of his chair and over to Lydia and Allison. “Lydia, Lydia, my sweet, evil Lydia, do you remember that problem we had in chemistry earlier?”

Lydia’s eye lit up. “I do, Stiles, I do.”

“I have come up with a little … solution to our problem. Can we meet after school? You can bring Jackson; I have a feeling this will be right up his alley.”

Lydia winked. “Sounds like a plan. Library?”

“Sounds perfect. Now I must return to Derek before he murders Peter in cold blood.” Allison giggled but Stiles was only half-joking. He wouldn’t be surprised if Derek murdered Peter.

As soon as Stiles slid back into his seat, Peter chimed in again. “Alright, class, lets head down to the theater! Bring all of your things.”

Stiles raised his hand. “Are we actually performing this for people?”

“Of course not!” Stiles heard Derek breathe a sigh of relief next to him. “Well, just for me. Some of the other classes might be joining us that are reading Shakespeare but who knows! Plus the play is three hours long, at minimum, and class is only an hour and a half. Well,” Peter glanced at the clock, “forty minutes once we get down there and settled. Plus we are going to pause every so often and have discussions about the play.” Stiles could hear the silent prayers for Peter to randomly disappear between now and Friday. “Plus any questions from any classes that show up, directed at each of our players. Now let us go forth, friends, and venture into the abyss.”

“I just hope he doesn’t make us do this for Othello too.” Stiles mumbled. Derek grunted in agreement.

\--

While BHHS had a wonderful, absolutely fantastic sports program, it did not have any other real positives about it. The theater was just a stage, not that big, with little room for elaborate sets. Even the drama club had begun to carpool over to the local theatre to have their meetings.

Peter, apparently, had missed that memo. His face was flushed a dark pink when he turned to the class, perplexed. “What is this?”

“The theater slash auditorium slash no one cares about drama at this school room.” Lydia answered. Peter looked back and she shrugged. “We literally never do plays in here. We get like zero funding. It all goes to sports or marching band.”

“Or Orchestra.” Kira chimed in. “We got to go to Nationals for free last year!”

“Well doesn’t the orchestra perform in the space?” Peter exclaimed, his face progressively turning redder.

“No, we rent out the Freemasons hall down the street.” Kira looked at Stiles, who shrugged.

Peter’s fury now was visible to his hairline. “This is ridiculous!”

“Beacon Hills High School was built in 1985, not 2010.” Lydia said, examining the tips of her nails.

Peter huffed out a sigh. “Alright, let’s start from the beginning. Witches, lets go.”

\--

Admittedly, once they got started it wasn’t as bad as anticipated. Derek looked like his teeth were getting pulled one by one every time he had to talk to someone and Erica overacted, changing accents between Malcolm and Donaldbain. This seemed to frustrate Peter but amuse Boyd and oddly Lydia, who kept giggling when she saw Peter get more exhasperated. Boyd’s Banquo, in his deeper voice, complimented Derek’s monotone. It was only after Act I Scene III that Peter stopped them.

“Alright, class, let’s pause here. I have a few notes.”

“This is a reading.” Derek stated.

“Well even so, we need to have passion. You all have passion about … some part of this play and I really want you to sell it to me. Even if it makes no sense whatsoever, show me you care. So, Derek, more emotion. Erica if you could cool it, especially with the witch accent, I can’t understand you. Kira, Boyd, Daniel, good job. Lydia – “ Lydia fixed him with a look, “never mind. Isaac, a little more energy please. “Greenburg, Jared …” He just waved a hand, as if it was clear. 

The bell rang and a collective sigh of relief went around. 

“Okay, class, let’s meet in here on Friday! Think about my notes and Stiles, be ready to show me something.”

“I hope you don’t mean my dick.” Stiles said softly, causing Erica to start to laugh loudly. Stiles turned and wiggled his eyebrows. 

As he finished packing up, he turned to see Lydia clacking the toe of her pump as if Stiles was taking a million years. “Come on, Stilinski, we don’t have all afternoon.”

He straightened up and felt his backpack brush into someone. He turned his head; of course it was Derek. “Sorry.”

Derek shrugged. 

“Uh, bye? See you in Spanish tomorrow.”

“Adios.” Derek answered.

Stiles groaned and walked up to Lydia. “He’s such a jackass.”

“Good, we need someone to rival you for biggest asshole of the year in the yearbook.” Lydia quipped back.

“I’ll never win with you.”

\--

Lydia directed them to the back of the library, where she then pulled out a key and unlocked a private study room. 

“I didn’t even know these things existed.” Stiles marveled. It was clearly Lydia’s own personal room – there were purple cushions around the room, a painted L hanging off of the wall, a blanket and a Beacon Hills lacrosse hoodie over a papasan that clearly was not from the library. The library was sadly stuck in 2004. They still had bean bag chairs they expected people to use. In school colors.

“Exactly.” She flipped her hair back into a high bun like she was opening a can of soda – easily and expertly. “I was a library assistant freshman year and I requested one due to my workload at the beginning of the year. Since nobody knows they exist, I got to choose my own and decorate it.”

“It’s really nice.” Stiles commented as he sat down gingerly in one of the chairs surrounding the work table.

“I would say sit in the papasan but then we wouldn’t be able to collaborate and you’d probably fall asleep.” She said, pulling out a notebook from her bag and a pen. “Okay, so what do we know?”

“Well, in December I signed up for OK Cupid, got a message from Seb Silver who then proceeded to delete his profile when the big school fire happened. Flash forward to Monday and I find out that ‘Seb’,” he emphasized the air quotes with his hands, “was actually Derek Hale, and that, due to his sunny demeanor, it was probably not him. I’d been Catfished.

I also noticed that Argent, Katherine and Baccari, Julia, were both heavily interested in me. Having never met them before and the fact they nearly killed me with Argent’s Range Rover, it seems like they might be the culprits. They brought up things that were said in the OK Cupid messages like my ‘beauty marks’. They also both have dated Derek at one point, which means they know shit about him and could make it convincing. ” Stiles leaned back, glancing at Lydia’s neat and detailed notes. She had them in the Cornell style, which Stiles had no patience to keep up after their tenth English grade teacher made them do so for her class. “They seemed to have forgotten that my father’s the sheriff, and I may have ADHD but I also want to be a detective. If they think easy clues like that would pass me by, they have another think coming.”

Lydia smiled. It was one of her favorite misquotes; she and Stiles had both done papers on famous misquotations in the eleventh grade. “Alright, so we have vague proof, but no reasons as to why they would do it.” Lydia tapped her pen against the page. “Motivations?”

“I have none? Just being jerks with Derek’s personal information? Maybe he is bi but hasn’t come out to anyone, one of them knows and wanted to embarrass him? Wanted to spread some rumors that he’s gay because they think that being gay is offensive? Some people have no motivation.” Stiles paused but Lydia looked at him, “I don’t know, maybe the fire cut them off at the pass and they had a larger plan?” Stiles leaned back in his chair, resting his head against the wall behind him.

“Hmm, well, let’s start at the obvious. Does Derek have a Facebook?”

Stiles shrugged and pulled out his phone, opening the Facebook app. He typed in Derek’s name and he was the first result up. Stiles clicked but Derek’s profile was private; his profile picture was a picture of feet in a stream. “Should I add him?”

Lydia shrugged. “Why not?”

Stiles sighed and clicked the add button, then exited out. “So, do we do more online research? I am the master of Google-fu.”

“I suppose that’d be good. If we can’t figure out any motivations by next Monday, we can just ask them to stop being creepy or we’ll go to Derek and tell him.” Lydia stated, circling a point in the middle of her notes.

“I guess so. I have a feeling they just were doing it to be weird and oddly mean. Though I have no idea why it was me they picked.”

“Stiles,” Lydia said, turning to him, “though you are a giant spaz and hate a good three fourths of people, you are cute and can be nice if you feel like it. If someone met you online they might actually like you.”

Stiles clutched his hand to his heart. “Oh Lydia, that is the most backhanded but nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you wanna do your chemistry homework in here with me?”

“Can I sit in the fluffy chair?”

Lydia flicked her hand at him. “Go for it.”

\--

By the time Stiles had finished the assload of chemistry that Morrell had assigned and had it checked by Lydia, got home and made dinner, he had pretty much forgotten about his Facebook request to Derek. 

As usual, his perusal of the normal websites had him start on Facebook, where he had one friend notification on the weird new home screen. When he clicked it, he saw that Derek had accepted his request. He clicked through and found pictures of Derek playing basketball, notes from family members on his wall, a picture of him and Boyd actually smiling at each other. It was really cute, really sweet. 

One thing that caught his eye was Derek’s url. It was weird, something he must have kept from his livejournal or Myspace days. 

Stiles had a thought. He copied the name itself, went into a new search bar and made it into a tumblr URL. 

And there it was. Derek’s personal blog. Stiles took a moment to ask himself whether he thought it was going too far, but this was more for research than stalking Derek. He added the codes for personal posts on the end and suddenly he was flooded with a bunch of little personal posts. They were sometimes about his family, how scared he was to leave but how ready he was to get away from Laura, how the school burned down, and a lot of posts that were questioning himself. One after the transfer news had gone out and how he was worried that he wouldn’t have any friends in his classes and all of the other kids would hate him because Peter was going to teach. About how he kind of felt like a third wheel with Boyd and Erica sometimes. There were a few about loneliness and how his mom worked more, his dad was traveling a lot for work and he just slowly felt like he was disappearing into the background with Laura and Peter being around and Cora latching onto Laura again. Stiles had never had siblings, but being a middle child must be difficult.

Stiles had gone through about three pages and was going to give up when he found one under a read more post. He clicked on it and it was this strange, paced prose that Stiles could immediately identify with.

It was about how to come out to your family; about breaking up with people you didn’t want to date but did because it was expected of you. How he hated the expectations of others being thrust upon him, yet he felt like he had no place to speak up. Stiles read with a voracity he normally saved for Artemis Fowl novels, his guilty pleasure. He even got a little choked up at the end. He wanted to like it, but that was crossing a line he didn’t want to get to yet. 

Instead he copied and pasted to his sticky notes on his computer, shut it down and texted Lydia. 

_It might be about coming out and Derek not having done it yet. It might be revenge for breaking up with Kate._

**Why do you think that?**

_a tumblr post he did. I’ll show you tomorrow._

**Sounds good.**

Stiles then spent his whole shower and a good portion of the night about how to broach the subject with Derek without seeming creepy tomorrow in Spanish. He barely got any sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. here is a link for 'another think coming'!! I PROMISE IT IS ACTUALLY A SAYING. (ty based Meg Cabot for teaching me so).
> 
> http://grammarist.com/usage/another-think-coming/


	6. The Line Unraveling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off - I KNOW THIS IS SO SHORT. I'm killing myself over it but I feel like it needs a final set up before it all falls out. 
> 
> That being said, I did extend it to seven chapters and now I feel like eight might be more appropriate? I know, kill me, right? I don't know why I pretend I can be concise. 
> 
> A little more Spanish in this chapter (again, not my native language so pls forgive me).
> 
> All comments are wonderful. Drop me a line :)

Stiles ran from homeroom to AP European and made it before Lydia. He was vibrating with the many ideas he had. 

Lydia slid in next to him, took the pen he had been tapping against the desktop and rapped him across the knuckles with it. 

“So, you have an idea?” She said, setting his pencil neatly on her desk. He wanted to reach for it but Lydia was giving him her full attention so he tried to do the same.

“Well, he is definitely not just straight,” Allison walked in so he pitched his voice lower, “and clearly Kate and Julia or whatever found out,” the teacher stopped Allison, but he kept rolling on, “so they thought they were gonna get me to fall in love with him and then embarrass him by having me show up at like, a school dance or something and using stuff from his tumblr via me to out him. It would make me look crazy but no one there knew me. Well, I guess technically Erica did but you know…”

“So they’re evil.” Lydia paused, then raised her eyebrow. “So, we beat them at their own game.”

“What?” Stiles said loudly. Everyone looked at him. “I mean, what?”

“Do you have other classes with Derek? I mean, besides English. But you’re already married there, aw, how cute.” Lydia mused, playing with a curl in her hair.

Allison slid into her seat. “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.” Lydia continued. “So, do you?”

“Uh, yeah, next period.” Stiles said softly.

“Talk to him. Become his friend.” Stiles shot her a look. “You can do it!” The bell rang. “We’ll plan more in study hall.”

Stiles sighed and turned his attention towards the teacher.

\--

Next period was thankfully Lydia-free, and Stiles slid into his normal desk with little frill. He still felt the anxiety of knowing. It was getting worse because he knew he would see Derek today, and though he had a reason to snoop through his internet life, it was still not his space to explore. Scott was late, which was unusual, but Stiles had plenty of paper to pull out to check for this translation – he had a few questions on phrases that weren’t clicking.

As someone sat behind him, he turned around and quickly spouted out a “Hola, amigo” to who he thought was Danny.

“Hola, Stiles.”

It was Derek. If Stiles had known any prayers in Spanish, he would be saying them now. 

A hand slammed down on his desk. He turned. Senorita Laura. 

How would it start? _Maria_ , something something something …

“Hola, Senor.”

“Estas hablando a mi oa tu hermano?” Stiles hoped that was right. (1)

Apparently it was close enough. Laura cracked up, her hand on her midsection as she cackled. “Ustead.” (2)

Stiles turned to Derek, panic written all over his face. What the fuck do you say to someone’s sister when you’re barely friends with him in a language you aren’t fluent in? ‘Hi, I’m Stiles, your brother is hot but grumpy’ was all he was coming up with, and that was in English!

“Laura, podrias dejar de favor?” Derek asked, and Laura smirked and wiggled up to the front of the room as Scott sat down. (3)

“Did you hear?” Scott said loudly, then looked at Laura. Senora Ramirez was very hard on them when they spoke English, but he probably wanted to get it all out quickly. “Senora Ramirez is sick.”

Stiles sank his head down on to the closest available desk, which was Derek’s, and groaned. After a few seconds, Derek patted his head sympathetically. 

“It’ll be worse for me, trust me.” Derek said.

Stiles looked up. “Like Peter?”

“Except female, less creepy and … more Laura.” Derek finished, like that would explain it all.

Scott just looked between the two of them as Danny slid into the seat, looking at Derek then at one of the twins, who was still in the back of the room. He then raised an eyebrow at Stiles.

Maybe Danny could help them. “Later.” He mouthed at Danny.

The bell rang.

“Hola todos. Senora Ramirez esta enferma. Yo soy Laura and I can see by the looks on your faces you are not interested in actually speaking Spanish today.” Somebody clapped. “Senora Ramirez was going to give you a pop quiz today,” someone else groaned, “but I see no reason to do so. Or really touch any sort of educational information for her class. Instead, we will be watching the film ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’. You will take notes and turn them into me.” Danny raised his hand. ‘Yes?”

“Danny.”

“Danny, thank you.”

“Are we watching with subtitles?” A thrum of excitement went through the air. They never got to watch with subtitles.

“Yes.” An exhale of relief came out. Last semester Senora Ramirez had made them watch Pan’s Labyrinth three times without subtitles until someone figured out the word she wanted them to pick out. “But I want you to write down the words you don’t know when you hear them, write the English translation next to it and then at the end turn it in. See what modern Spanish from Spain words you guys don’t know.”

She turned the lights off, grabbed the remote and slid into the seat behind Derek. “Let’s get started.”

Stiles heard Derek slam his head down. “Pay attention, Hale!” Laura commanded, then laughed like a witch while the introduction started.

\--

Stiles spent most of Spanish listening to Derek mutter the lines with some familiarity, and when Laura had paused the film halfway through, there was even a groan from Derek, as if they were about to get to the good part.

In Stiles’ opinion, the good part was Antonio Banderas, so he felt Derek’s pain. 

Lydia was standing outside of study hall, one toe tapping impatiently as Stiles approached. Before he could even go into the classroom, she pulled him by the sleeve towards the library. “I told her we had a chemistry project that involved talking, so she said we could go to the library.”

“Oh kay?” Stiles agreed, then waved at Scott as he followed Lydia.

“I have the perfect plan.”

\--

Lydia’s plan, which was going to start the next day, was ingenious. Stiles was going to invite Erica to GSA tomorrow morning, which was the following Wednesday, and tell her that she should bring her friends (the whole lacrosse team went so Stiles would be there anyway). Then in Chemistry he would loudly ‘come out’ in front of the whole class. In English, he’d be antsy and nervous and Lydia would bring it up in class, in front of Derek, and hopefully a spark would catch.

Derek would maybe talk about his stuff to Stiles. See him as a compatriot, and maybe that would involve him coming out to Stiles so then they could make out in front of the whole entire school … 

Or that was Stiles’ hope anyway. Lydia just wanted Derek to eventually come out so she could threaten Kate and Julia and scare them away from Prom Queen (they were apparently nominee-worthy). Plus it might encourage more people to talk at GSA. Danny would like that.

Shit. Danny. Stiles sat forward in Lydia’s fluffy chair.

“Wait, we have to tell Danny.”

“Why?” Lydia said as she clicked through her professional senior pictures.

“Because I told him what I thought was originally true – that Derek had Catfished me – and he would probably rip Derek’s head off for going near me?” Stiles shrugged.

“That’s perfect!” Stiles arched an eyebrow. “Danny will ‘tell’ me you came out to him, I’ll out you in class and then those two bitches will expect you to out Derek! Plus it’ll give you a reason to be jittery and upset, I can ‘apologize’ in English and it’ll make you look more sympathetic.”

“Sure.” Stiles said, reclining back. “But you get to tell him.”

Lydia sighed but began to text on her phone.

The bell rang for lunch.

\--

When they got to the cafeteria, Stiles felt Scott’s eyes on him. He sat down, pulled out his lunch and gave Scott one of his cookies. This seemed to sate his curiosity, so Stiles turned back to the table. Lydia was asking Allison about English and did not seem interested at all in his Crunch bar, so he tore through the packet and stuffed it in his mouth.

Plan = done.

Candy = his.

Life = good.

\--

Calc was boring, but mostly because Lydia had spent the second half of study hall drilling Stiles on different equations or whatever, so he could kind of doze off during the drone of their teacher’s voice.

He was early for practice – he wanted to catch Danny and confirm – but instead ran into one of the weird twins.

“Uh, hi?”

The boy grinned lecherously, “Ethan.”

“Ethan. Hi. Do you know Danny?” He nodded. “Oh-kay, do you know where he is?”

“No.” He drew out, walking closer to Stiles.

“Okay. I’m gonna go change now?” Stiles pointed back towards the lacrosse team’s side of the room.

“You sure?” Ethan drifted closer to him.

“He’s sure, Ethan.” Derek’s voice crisply enunciated, and Ethan backed away, a smile on his damn face. 

“Thanks.” He supposed he was supposed to feel emasculated, but Ethan wasn’t backing up and Stiles didn’t feel comfortable.

Derek raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, am I in your way? Sorry, man.” Stiles squeezed past and headed to the lacrosse corner, where Danny was sitting, snickering. “Dude!”

“That was too funny!” Danny said and started to wheeze he was laughing so hard. 

“It was not! Shut up!” Stiles screeched and looked back. Derek was undressing but Ethan looked amusedly at the two of them. “ARGH!”

“What, Stiles, does being hit on by a guy weird you out?” Danny said, wiggling his eyebrows.

This rat bastard. “No.” He squeaked. Danny laughed again and Stiles pitched his voice lower. “So I guess it you got Lydia’s texts?”

“Yes and I am delighted to help you two out. I think it is … well, it’s quite evil, but it is unapologetically the two of you, and I’m glad that you’re not following her around like a lost puppy anymore. And that you got,” Danny’s voice went soft, “Catfished instead of actually fucked with by Derek Hale.”

“Why?”

“Because then I would feel guilty watching him change, but now I can do it without any shame whatsoever.”

“You’re incorrigible.” Stiles replied as he went to his locker. “Do you want me to strip for you?”

“If you want to …” Danny trailed off, but before it could get any further, Finstock burst out of his office.

“Bilinski! Danny! Where are the rest of the boys? Why are the two of you lollygagging? Let’s get to it!” Coach turned to Ethan and Derek, who had put on his uniform. “Who are the two of you?”

“Beacon Valley basketball.”

Finstock made a weird noise. “Useless.” Stiles and Danny laughed. “Let’s get to it, team.”

Finstock left as quickly as he came in and Stiles turned to Derek and Ethan as Danny began to change. “I would say sorry about him but you aren’t on his team. He’s worse on the field.” 

Danny laughed. “Amen to that.”

Scott came in at that moment, Isaac clearly trailing him with the laughter. Stiles turned back to his own locker and began to change for practice.

Practice would be mindless, and tomorrow had the promise of excitement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 - Are you talking to me or your brother?
> 
> 2 - You.
> 
> 3 - Laura, please leave him alone.


	7. The Reel in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! As always, I'm sorry about the wait. I've also added on one more chapter (this thing is becoming a novella, i s2g.) I promise to be done by next week!! I hope y'all like it.
> 
> All comments are wonderful. Thank you for reading. 
> 
> ALSO IF ANYONE WANTS TO CORRECT MY SPANISH, DON'T HESITATE!

Stiles arrived early to school the next day. He had to remind himself that technically it was just another Friday in the middle of January. He was still going to be spending all day at school, learning. He would still have lacrosse practice after school (unless Coach had one of his random doctor’s appointments). He knew the drama was coming. On top of that it was all fabricated. This was all a plot to do a greater good.

It still had him buzzing in the driver’s seat as he waited for Scott to pull into the parking lot. He was trying to look as normal as possible, and even though he loved Scott, he hadn’t told him of the nefarious plan that was in motion. Scott, for all of his loyalty, had the biggest mouth in the state of California and Stiles had seen Isaac hanging around Boyd and Erica. Which was kind of weird, if he really thought about it. He hadn’t seen Isaac with Scott when they entered lacrosse practice the day before and Isaac had gotten a ride home with Boyd …

He heard the thrum of the bike, so he pushed that thought aside for Econ and got out of his car.

\--

Homeroom was getting old. Finstock had given up on attendance and was instead reading a copy of some baking magazine when Stiles slid into class that morning. He had a feeling that Finstock would go on a tirade about baking prices today in Econ, so he sat down in the back row and pulled out a notebook.

Erica wasn’t too far behind, and he turned and offered her a fist pump. She responded with glee. “So, what are you doing this weekend?” He asked as she checked her phone.

“Oh, not much. The basketball game tonight, homework, maybe going and visiting Boyd at the ice rink. You?”

Stiles had forgot that tonight was (ironically) the BHHS and BVHS game tonight. That might be fun to go to. “I guess maybe go to the game, probably tutor Scott, play HALO, that sort of thing.”

“You should totally come to the game.” Erica purred, her eyes filling with mirth. “You can sit with me and everything.”

“Only if you promise me one thing.” This was easier than expected, Stiles told himself.

“Go for it.”

“You come to GSA next week.” She raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say it’s a social thing, but Boyd’s going to join the lacrosse team and all of us go in a state of solidarity with Danny. You should bring people. They normally have brownies?” Stiles offered lamely.

“It sounds like a plan. You come to the basketball game, we’ll come to GSA.” She offered her hand and he shook it.

“Okay then.”

\--

Econ was, no surprise, a tirade on the prices of brownie mix going on up and the futility of baking without mixes. Stiles had made it through a detailed caricature of Finstock and was now writing his full name in bubble letters when the bell rang.

 

Gym had them doing some sort of intense Pilates workout from a video series, which meant he got to have a shower and was moderately presentable for chemistry.

“Scott, smell check?” Scott, the true friend he was, gave a strong sniff.

“All good.” Scott scanned his whole outfit. “You trying to impress someone?”

Stiles sighed. “No.” Wait, this was a good time. “You wanna go to the basketball game tonight?”

“Yeah sure –“

“WE ARE ALL GOING. BEACON HILLS!” Someone screamed, and when Stiles turned around, it was no surprise that it was Jackson. Stiles rolled his eyes.

“Okay, Terminator.”

The bell rang. 

\--

Stiles slid into his seat in chemistry with little fuss. He thought about saving a seat for Lydia, but he was supposed to be playing it cool. Nonchalant. Be Bogie, he told himself as he sat there, Bogie in Casablanca, Don’t think about what’s going to happen next.

Lydia slid into her seat and she flicked her eyes behind her. Stiles put his hand on the desk and shot her a thumbs up. Kate and Julia had followed him in and had been glancing at him ever since.

Lydia turned her megawatt smile on. “Stiles.” She whispered loudly. 

Stiles turned as if he didn’t know she was going to speak to him. “What?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me?”

“That I was going to go to the basketball game tonight?” That was a plausible thing Stiles hadn’t told her, considering he had made up his mind less than three hours ago.

“No!” She said cheerfully, and then in a stage whisper, “That you’re bi!”

Stiles felt his cheeks heat up and looked around. “Lydia!” He screeched.

“What? Oh honey, I’m sure everyone knows. It is kind of obvious.”

Even though this was planned, Stiles felt a flush run through his cheeks and down his neck. “Lydia, I didn’t want everyone to know!”

Before it could get any further, Ms. Morrell was in between the two of them.

“Ms. Martin, Mr. Stilinski, do we need to have a conversation outside?” And fuck whoever decided to let the school counselor teach chemistry, they made this so much more difficult.

“No ma’am.” Stiles replied quickly. Lydia looked at him like he had grown a third head.

What? He could have manners. Stiles felt all eyes on him; he began to blush more.

“Stiles, would you like to go sit in my office for the period, cool down?” Morrell offered sweetly and Stiles jumped at the chance to get out of there. He didn’t know he would feel so … exposed doing this. He didn’t know he would feel oddly betrayed. 

“Yes, I would.” 

She smiled kindly (which was kind of freaky) and went to write him a pass. “The secretary will let you in.” She said as he finished packing his stuff up and stood up to leave. 

“Thank you.” He said softly, and headed towards the front office.

\--

Naturally, Ms. Nancy (she lived next door, alright) was very hesitant about doing so, and even called Morrell to double check that it wasn’t Stiles pulling a prank. After a good five minutes of staring, she shooed him off to Ms. Morrell’s office. Not even two minutes later his phone rang as he sprawled along her surprisingly nice couch. 

His dad.

“Hey Daddio.” He answered wearily.

“Stiles, Nancy called me from the office and said you were holed up in Morrell’s office. Are you okay son?” His dad sounded truly concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine. She just thought I was emotionally exhausted and told me to take a break before last period. I was thinking about taking a nap.” Stiles was oddly tired. All of that fake drama really could take a bit out a guy.

“Alright son, just don’t … do anything too bad.”

“I won’t. Love you.”

“Love you too.” His dad hung up without ceremony. Stiles understood; he was at work and didn’t have a lot of time to lollygag.

Stiles set his timer for fifty minutes – it would give him enough time to rest and then get to English early.

\--

Stiles hopped from foot to foot as he waited outside of the theater. The bell hadn’t even rang for the period to be over yet but he had woken up a couple minutes before his alarm and he wasn’t going to risk sleeping through the last period.

“Stiles.” A voice said from behind him. He turned; it was Peter.

“Mr. Hale. I have a note for missing last period, I’m not skipping.” Stiles went digging in his pocket for it.

Peter held out a hand. “No need, my boy, I believe you. Would you like to come in early? Since it is Friday, I went out and got some coffee so you bunch will stay away.”

‘You bunch’. Who the fuck talks like that? “Uh, sure?”

Stiles went inside and there was a table with boxes of doughnuts stacked on top of each other, a container of napkins that wasn’t opened and a few cardboard boxes of coffee. Stiles sighed and dropped his bag. If he was here early and he was pretty much stuck with Peter, he would at least set up so that he wouldn’t have to have any awkward heart to hearts about his feelings or whatever Peter wanted.

“So, are you doing okay, Stiles? I know that they don’t like smart kids like you out of your equally as smart classes for no apparent reason.”

Fuck. Now he was cleaning and he had to try and skirt Peter’s question. Luckily the bell went off, but there wasn’t going to be anyone in the room with them for a good minute. 

Stiles unstacked the doughnuts and tried to sort them. “Oh hey, you got crullers, these are my favorite.” Stiles contemplated sticking one or five in his mouth so he didn’t have to talk.

“Now I understand how someone so young might not feel comfortable talking to little old me about this but Stiles, if your friends are the ones upsetting you then you need to turn to an adult.” 

Stiles looked behind him and Peter gave him a lecherous smile. “Uh, oh…kay?”

Luckily someone burst in the door and Stiles snagged a doughnut and shoved it in his mouth.

“Nephew!” Peter cried, and Stiles turned around to see Derek standing in the doorway, staring at Stiles. Who had a doughnut halfway in his mouth. He unceremoniously pushed the rest of the doughnut in.

People streamed in after Derek, but he seemed pinned to the spot until Lydia walked in. Stiles could tell because she was tapping her heel behind Derek until he turned and looked at her. 

“Excuse me.” Lydia stated in a way that brokered no arguments. Derek took a sidestep and Lydia strutted down the aisle as if she was the queen and the stage was her throne. She pulled her book out of the top of her purse and left it hanging off of the edge of a seat. She then gingerly picked up a doughnut and pointed at Stiles, then the stage. He sighed, mostly for dramatic effect, and said, “Can we just not?”

She raised an eyebrow. He sighed again and walked to the stairs, where he held out his hand for her to walk up safely to the top. It was mostly for show – he had seen her run in those things a time or two – but it also showed that he was going to forgive her. He hopped up on stage after her. 

“Sit.” She said, positioning herself on an acting block. Stiles heard people getting up on stage around them, but he pretended that he was lost in talking to Lydia. “Look, Stiles, I would never normally do this but I’m sorry.”

He reared back and glanced to both sides. “You’re what?”

“I’m sorry!” She hissed, loud enough for it to echo. Damn she was good. “I didn’t realize you weren’t ready to come all of the way out.”

Stiles sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s cool.”

“Really?” She gave him doe eyes.

“Yes really. I don’t know, I mean, I would have probably just gone the rest of the semester without doing it if you hadn’t told anyone but I mean, I go to GSA every week. It’s not really a surprise. Plus, you know, maybe now I could find a date to prom.” He fluttered his eyelashes for effect.

“Sorry, I think that Danny is interested in someone else.” Lydia said flippantly.

“I’m sure there’s someone out there.”

A hand came down on his shoulder and he screamed, flying sideways off of his block. He looked up to see Peter, who was laughing, and Derek, looking concerned over Lydia’s shoulder.

“Now that the real life dramatics have ended, let’s begin with the verse!”

\--

It wasn’t until the bell was about to ring that Stiles thought that it had actually sunk in with Derek.

“So.” Stiles heard in his ear. He turned to look at Derek, who was flicking his eyes between Stiles and the general stage area. 

“So.”

“You gonna go to the game tonight?” Derek asked.

This is not where Stiles was expecting this to go. “Uh, yeah, I promised Erica I would go with her since, y’know, Boyd’s on the team and so are you and that seems to be her whole social circle. Plus, I heard it’s a big game.”

Derek focused completely on him for a second and Stiles felt like the world was going to explode. 

“Cool.”

Stiles took a brief inhale. “Yeah, cool.”

“DEREK!” Peter screeched, and Derek moved forward.

Well, that was that.

\--

After practice, Stiles had enough time to go home and shower, eat something more than just his usual peanut butter sandwich before dinner snack, and dick around on Facebook before he had to go pick up Scott. 

Scott was going to meet Allison there, mostly to save her from the clutches of her evil aunt and her minion. Minions? Stiles wasn’t sure. All he was sure of is that Scott wouldn’t shut up about it.

Maybe Allison could give him a ride home. 

Anyway, when they got there, Scott beelined into the gym, holding his phone up as proof that Allison had told him she was already inside and had saved him a seat. Erica had told Stiles to wait for her outside. 

After about five minutes, a van pulled up in a handicapped spot and Erica got out slowly, with intent. Her makeup was keyed down and the only real signs it was her is that her hair was still glossy and curly like it had been during the day and she was wearing Boyd’s jacket. She looked up, then argued a little more with whoever was in the car, pointed at Stiles, who waved, and then trounced over to him.

“Who was that?”

“My parents. Come on, hold my arm until we get into the school, they’ll leave after they see me get in.” Stiles shrugged and held out his arm. They walked up the steps slowly and with purpose. Erica turned around at the top, waved, then they went inside. “I’m sorry, they get so overprotective. When it isn’t Boyd I’m meeting they normally come inside and watch, but since your dad is the Sheriff, they figure you wouldn’t let anything too bad happen to me.”

“Because of your …” Stiles trailed off, unable to articulate this kindly.

“Yeah, they’re always worried I’ll have a seizure and be alone and someone will film it or take advantage of me if I get knocked unconscious.” Stiles squeezed her arm lightly. “Yeah, I know, it sucks. Anyway, we gotta hurry up if we wanna get good seats!” She unlaced her arm and pulled him behind her towards the gym.

\--

In the end, they ended up sitting with the Hales. And not just Laura, who was incredibly peppy today, but Cora and Peter and Derek’s parents, who he’d never met before. He was worried they would look at him funny, but instead they talked about how Laura had commented about how fun he was in class and Derek had said that it was funny when he stood up to Peter.

Peter laughed at this comment.

The buzzer rang for the warmup time to be over, and when the teams rolled in, Stiles realized he was in the family and SO cheering section. 

For Beacon Valley. 

He only really put it together when he caught Jackson, waving a school pendant, making faces at him, with Lydia next to him. He waved briefly then went back to the court.

He didn’t really know anyone from their school that was on the basketball team. Well, Greenburg was their statistician but that didn’t count. He felt validated because even though he wasn’t necessarily friends with Derek or Boyd, he still knew them better than anyone else on his own team. 

Plus he was wearing a Cyclones shirt.

\--

He could tell by the jump at the beginning of the game that this was going to be brutal. Players from his team kept knocking into the Beacon Valley team members. Boyd was immovable, but he got the second most fouls put upon him after Derek. 

Derek, who kept getting slammed into the ground. He got tripped four times before halftime by completely different people. Stiles didn’t see the point in that strategy because it meant he kept getting free throws. Free throws which he sunk with impressive ease. 

With thirty seconds on the buzzer before halftime, Derek got fouled a fifth time and stepped up to the line. The ref was on his right, which was where he and everyone else were sitting. He looked up and met Stiles’ eyes and for a second he could have sworn he saw Derek smile before going back towards the basket.

Derek jumped and it was just like floating.

\--

The second half was more of the same. It seems that the Cyclones had given up on scoring and just instead wanted to beat the shit out of Beacon Valley. They did a pretty good job and it wasn’t until someone literally fouled out that Stiles saw Coach Finstock get up from his place on the bleachers and go to talk to some German teacher who coached the basketball team. 

Words were exchanged and it looked like Coach was going to get thrown out for a second before the German teacher sighed and called a time out.

They still lost. 

Stiles could see the disappointment in Jackson and pretty much all of the lacrosse team’s faces. Well, except for Danny, who was just as bouncy looking as Stiles felt. Maybe he won a bet with Jackson or something. Beacon Hills wasn’t known for their basketball.

After the game ended (88-66, Beacon Valley), Erica grabbed onto Stiles’ arm and sank down like a stone in her seat. “Wait with me. I hate waiting after games alone.”

“What about –“ Stiles went to gesture to the Hale family, but they all seemed to clear out pretty quickly.

“They always celebrate good games on Saturday mornings so Derek can hang out with Boyd or whatever afterwards. It’s pretty cool of them actually.” Erica commented.

Stiles felt his pocket buzz.

_dude, hanging out w/Allison for a few but she can’t drive me home._

Stiles sighed. 

**k, waiting after with Erica but I’ll meet u at the jeep?**

_k!_

“Sorry, that was Scott. We both have a curfew and I have to drive him home in a few.” It was only 9:30, but Scott ‘hanging out’ with Allison meant that he wouldn’t be done until 10:30, barely squeaking by enough time to drive both of them home by 11.

Erica sighed. “I understand that. My parents ask me to call them once Boyd picks me up, when we stop somewhere to eat, which I can’t do, and then after we leave and are on the way home. It doesn’t matter that I’m eighteen, they just need to know their baby girl is safe.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, look, that took them like no time whatsoever.”

“It’s because the showers at this school are awful.” Stiles commented back.

Boyd had exited first, his head turned to talk to the person behind him. Which was Derek. Derek, still a little wet, his hair all over the place and a big smile on his face. When he turned and saw Stiles, it was almost like it went a little bigger. 

“Hey!” Stiles said, albeit a little too loudly.

“We can get off of the bleachers now, Stiles.” Erica huffed and walked off of the bleachers into Boyd’s arms. They kissed. Stiles chose to lean over the bleachers and talk to Derek.

“Do you normally get fouled that often?” Was his first question.

Derek shrugged. “Not that much but yeah, a lot.”

“That kinda sucks. And is pointless. You make all the free throws you shoot anyway, it’s just free points.” Derek shrugged again. “You’re really good.”

Derek looked at the floor. “Thanks.”

“I mean it! You’re really good.” Stiles hoped it didn’t sound too … too something. Too excited? Nah. Too peppy? No. Too –

“Thank you. You know you sat in the wrong section, right?” 

Derek didn’t normally engage like this, so Stiles turned back. “Well, I know more of your team then I do mine. Friends-wise, you know? You and Boyd.”

“That’s two of us.”

“You’re acting like I have a lot of friends. Lydia wasn’t really my friend until Monday.” Derek raised his eyebrows. “Me yelling at that person that cut me off raised her opinion of me apparently.”

Derek snorted. 

“Yeah, it’s kind of weird but I’ll take it. I really only have ever had Scott before this. Plus I bet once all of the hullabaloo dies down from you guys coming to our school I’ll be back to being a speck on the paint of the lacrosse bench.”

“You never know.” Derek added back. 

There was a pause for a moment, then, before Stiles could get anything out, he heard the thwacking of tennis shoes. He looked up to see Scott at the top of the bleachers. He was bright red. “Stiles!” He said in a loud voice. “Can we leave now please?”

Stiles turned back to Derek. “Sorry, man, bro-duty calls.” He checked his pocket for his keys. “I’ll see you on Monday?”

Derek nodded and Stiles smiled at him. “See you Monday.” Derek replied, and half of his mouth came up in a smile.

Stiles floated out to the car and didn’t even try to listen to Scott and how Mr. Argent had found him and Allison ‘just talking’ outside and had ran him off. He would worry about it tomorrow. For tonight, it was looking like his plan to get back at Kate and Jennifer had just turned into a possible date for prom.

He just had to see if he could get Derek to smile again on Monday.


	8. Catching the Fish.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a wake up call, the story ends in an unusual way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes are at the end but as always, thank you guys for reading! You're the best.

As he was getting in bed that night, he got a text from Lydia. Which was strange for a multitude of reasons – firstly, she had texted him more in this past week than she had in their whole lives of knowing each other. Secondly, it was a quarter past one. Thirdly, see the first reason. He eagerly opened it. 

**Saw you talking to Hale earlier.**

_yeah he’s a p cool dude. I think after this I might ask him out._

**Are you serious right now?**

Stiles sputtered. _why wouldn’t I be_

**I’m coming over tomorrow. Noon. Have an HDMI cable out.**

Weird. _do u know where I live_

**That is the second dumbest thing you’ve said to me today. I’ll see you at noon.**

_k_ Stiles sighed as he sent the text and rolled over. Lydia was smarter than him, so whatever she wanted to do would make sense to him when she got here. He was surprisingly tired and sleep came easily to him.

\--

His phone went off at 10:30 on the nose. 10:30 AM. As in the morning hours. He groaned and went to turn off his alarm.

Less than thirty seconds later the home phone went off. One of the cons of being the son of the sheriff is that there has to be a way for the department to contact him besides cell phone. Which means that the Stilinskis still had a land line. 2015. And they still had a land line.  
A minute later and Lydia’s dulcet tones floated up the stairs to Stiles’ room. “Stiles, you have thirty seconds to pick up this phone.” Stiles fell out of bed to comply, kicking his sheets uselessly away from his legs. “I cannot believe I had to resort to calling your home number. This is ridiculous.” Stiles ran down the stairs in double time, sliding into the kitchen and picking up as he fell to the floor. 

“Sorry, sorry Lydia.” Stiles yawned. “What can I do for you?”

“Go buy some doughnuts. Make sure you get at least one coffee flavored one and four glazed, then whatever you want. Have a bottle of Evian chilled and a full pot of coffee for me when I get there. Do not forget to put the HDMI cord out. Do I make myself clear?” Her voice was oddly even for so early in the morning, but Stiles didn’t care. 

“Yes ma’am.”

“Also, look like you’re going to a party by noon. Comb your hair, Stiles, and no flannel. Try a v-neck.”

Stiles yawned again. “Yes ma’am.”

\--

Stiles took a quick shower and per Lydia’s instructions, combed his hair and threw on some blue v-neck his dad had bought him at the beginning of the school year. He dutifully slid on his skinny jeans, his black converse (they were anytime shoes, okay) and, looking in the mirror, threw on a darker blue hoodie over everything. He looked decent at least.

By this point it was 11 and he busted his ass to get to the local doughnut shop. He got the promised coffee flavored doughnut, a half dozen of glazed and then a random assortment but no cruellers. He still hadn’t gotten over that awkward moment in class with Peter. 

After this, he stopped at the gas station, which luckily had this huge bottle of Evian for under two dollars. It was already cold, and Stiles mumbled praise as he pulled into his driveway at 11:40 with it still cool to the touch. He shoved it immediately into the fridge, then put the doughnuts on his dining room table.

“Okay, doughnuts, Evian, coffee? Coffee, coffee, coffee.” He mumbled to himself, going over to their ancient coffee pot. He wasn’t going to try and fancy it up with Lydia and his Nespresso skills. He dumped some fresh regular roast into the filter, filled up the water and clicked it on. He was glad his dad kept it around for emergencies, like when a big case hit and the deputies would come over and use their dining room as home base. “Alright, coffee on, what else, what else,” he hummed to himself, picking up random furniture pieces and rearranging them. “HDMI CORD!”

He hightailed it up to his room, where he hastily unplugged the cord from his PS3 and ran downstairs with it, plugging it into the living room TV. “Maybe I should bring the doughnuts in here …” He thought aloud, and went and grabbed them.

Right as he had placed them out with some napkins grabbed from the holder on the dining room table, the doorbell rang. He checked his phone – 11:55 – and went to the front door. As he entered the front hall, he realized he still had his shoes on, so he kicked them off and opened the door, his mouth open, to find Derek Hale.

Lydia. 

“Uh, hey!” Stiles said enthusiastically.

“Hey.” Derek responded, a blush on the tips of his ears. He looked delicious in a white v-neck showing what looked like chest hair, his leather jacket and dark wash jeans. He was also wearing combat boots that Stiles himself could never pull off. “My sister said I needed to be here at noon or she was going to paint my nails in my sleep?”

“She sounds evil.” Was the immediate response. Derek laughed. “Well, uh, come in. I have some doughnuts and some coffee ready to go in the pot if you’re thirsty?”

Derek stepped through his doorway and looked down at Stiles’ feet. Where his socks were mismatched. Fuck.

Lydia was probably going to kill him.

“Should I take my shoes off?” Derek asked. 

“Uh, if you want to.” Derek leaned down to take them off. “So, coffee?”

“Yes. Thank you.” He unlaced his shoes slowly.

“How do you take it?”

“Black? My dad always said that if you can’t take it black, you have no right drinking it.”

Stiles snorted. “Your dad sounds interesting. Does Peter agree?” He called back as he went into the kitchen, picking through the mugs to find a plain one and started to pour coffee into it.

“Does Peter agree?”

Derek groaned, “Peter doesn’t drink anything unless it is drenched in soy milk and Splenda or some fancy tea from that Teavana place. He is too much sometimes.”

Stiles laughed. “I totally agree.” He offered Derek the mug as Derek stood up. Even without the boots he had about two or three inches on Stiles.

“Should I shut the door?” Derek gestured with one hand as he gracefully took the mug with the other.

“Uh, no. Lydia should be here any second. You can go sit in the living room if you’d like.” Stiles flapped his arm in the general direction and hoped Derek took the hint.

He did, and Lydia walked in not even a minute later. “Stiles.”

“Derek,” he said this with an edge to his voice, “the doughnuts, and the HDMI cord are in the living room. Since you seem to know my whole life story, I bet you already know where that is.”

She raised an eyebrow and dug in her bag for a hand-painted mug. “Fill this up three-fourths of the way and grab my Evian from wherever you’ve stashed it. Please.”

Stiles sighed but did as he was told. 

\--

In the time it took him to fill her admittedly beautiful lavender mug and tuck the Evian securely under his arm, Lydia had already set up in the living room. Her laptop was up on a side table, the HDMI cord plugged in securely. Her tote bag was directly below it, her pumps sitting neatly next to them. The presentation on the screen was simply titled ‘Idiots’. She had half a doughnut in her hand and was looking at Derek. He was fiddling with a clicker of some kind and as Stiles handed her the mug, Derek made a happy sound and a click came promptly afterward.

“Put the Evian down on the coaster, if you would, Stiles.” Lydia gestured to another side table that had been repurposed to be a stand. It had two coasters, a coffee sweetener, a mini bottle of half and half, and a napkin with the other half of her doughnut. “Did you not get yourself anything to drink?” She enquired, and he ran back to the kitchen and grabbed himself a glass of orange juice.

When he got back, Lydia had the coffee in her hand, the Evian open and the half of her doughnut that was in her hand demolished. She pointed at the couch cushion next to Derek, and after he sat down, started her presentation.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming, though I know neither of you really had a choice in the matter. I have titled my presentation ‘idiots’, because that is what the both of you are.” Stiles made an offended noise but Lydia rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Stiles.”

She clicked to the next slide with her clicker, which was a very unflattering picture of Stiles. “Exhibit A, Stiles Stilinski. In December, Stiles went onto famed dating site OKCupid,” she clicked to a slide of a mock profile, with said ugly picture as his profile picture, “to find a prom date.

“Exhibit B, Derek Hale.” She clicked to a slide of Derek, which had an unfairly hot picture of Derek. Stiled pouted. “Derek has never been on a dating site to his knowledge. However, Derek has had a bad track record of dating.

Exhibit C, Kate Argent.” This slide contained a picture of Kate with crudely drawn devil horns on. Stiles snorted. “Derek’s first Evil Ex. Dated her briefly during junior year, where he dumped her after the Prom. 

Exhibit D, Julia Baccari.”She clicks to a very unflattering picture of Jennifer where all of her back molars are showing. “Derek’s second Evil Ex. They dated on and off all summer and broke up around the Homecoming football game for Beacon Valley for undisclosed reasons. Which is good, because his sisters hated him.

Exhibit E, Laura Hale.” Lydia clicked to a nice picture of Derek, with Laura behind him making a particularly ugly face. “Laura recently finished a degree at Stanford in Spanish with honors. However, she finished in three years, which means that she knew both Argent and Baccari when they were freshmen. She kicked them both off of the cheerleading team for ‘sabotage’. Her own words.” She clicked to a slide where a screencap of a text conversation between what Stiles assumed was Lydia and Laura.

“So, we move on to November, when we get a lot of pictures uploaded to Instagram of Julia and Kate hanging out.” There are four slides, each with footnotes, of various pictures of Julia and Kate doing whatever. 

“Now, back to Exhibit A,” the bad profile of Stiles popped back up, “lonely Stiles, looking for a date for once in his life, gets on OK Cupid and encounters a cute guy named Seb Silver.” Her next slide has another fake profile next to Stiles’ with Derek’s picture. “However, all is not what it seems.

Seb Silver is, in fact, not an actual person. He is a fake profile created by Kate Argent and Julia Baccari to embarrass both parties. They picked on innocent Stiles because he admits that he has never had a significant other and is both shy about coming out as bi. They pick Derek because he has dated both of them and broke up with both of them after … whatever.” Lydia gestured as if she doesn’t care. “The plan came from their ability to put two and two together and find Derek’s personal tumblr, where he posted about having an identity crisis.” She clicked to a screencap of Derek’s tumblr. Stiles looked at him, but Derek was staring at the screen intently, his face in a frown.

“Instead of being actual decent human beings, they decide to act like Jake Ryan’s girlfriend in Sixteen Candles and become evil. They set up this Seb Silver profile as revenge. Seb comes from Derek’s middle name, Sebastian, and Silver comes from the meaning of Argent in French. They pick someone they know is relatively close, but doesn’t go to the same school as they do. They lure him in by using real facts about Derek, his life and his interests, but defer any chance of actually seeing Derek.

However, a wrench is thrown in their plans.” A picture of the Beacon Hills Times’ article on the Beacon Valley fire pops up. “They realize that their schools would be blended together and whatever plan they have to embarrass both Stiles and Derek with some 1980’s John Hughes villain idiocy is going to fall through, so they delete Seb’s profile.

Stiles, on the other hand, mopes.” A picture of him from the New Year’s party pops up of him dejectedly holding a cup in the corner. “A week passes by, blah blah blah, Beacon Valley comes to Beacon Hills. Stiles sees Derek and knows something is up. He then blabs to both Scott and Danny about it because he is a fucking blabbermouth.” A slide of good pictures of both Scott and Danny pop up. “However, Stiles gets over this little hurdle and realizes that he has been Catfished. Which is when he turned to me.” A stunning picture of Lydia appeared.

“So we brainstormed and came up with a plan. A plan I thought was great, would reveal Kate and Julia to be idiots and not worthy of Prom Queen, but then Stiles becomes an idiot.” A slide with a huge stamp of ‘idiot’ over Stiles’ face, which he did not appreciate. At all. “Because, during these few days, he realizes that he really, really likes Derek Hale.” Stiles put his head in his hands. “An example is this text conversation had early this morning, which is when I decided to make this presentation.”

Stiles knew the conversation from earlier was up there. He felt hot all over. “Now, I was not expecting Stiles to be as dumb as he seems to be right now. This is not a teen movie, Stiles. Things don’t work out like this. Down the line this would come out and make Derek feel not good. Right, Derek?”

A minute later, Derek grumbled. “Yeah, it would have. This whole presentation makes me feel kind of awful.”

“What did you call yourself in your paper? A Byronic hero? Perfect. So, I want Stiles to be happy and actually have a date, I’m neutral on you, Derek, but I’m friends with both of your sisters so I would like them not to feel like shitty sisters and for you to date someone they both will probably like, so we are talking about this here and now.” Stiles heard her pick what was probably the bottle of Evian and take a sip. “So, any questions?”

“Why?” Derek asked, and Stiles looked up. “Why are you telling me? Why are you doing this in general?”

Lydia looked at Stiles. “Well, I think it’s shitty that people would do this to other people. I, uh,” he looked at the TV again, then back to Derek, “I really do like you. I had no idea this presentation was happening and I didn’t really think past, you know, the plan. Which was getting you to GSA and eventually warming you up to me, and then last night I thought maybe down the line I’d ask you on a date and maybe you’d go to prom with me but apparently that was a stupid idea because we would never last? Because maybe you think that it would be based on a lie? Or that I’d felt sorry for you and was doing it out of pity? Or something?” He looked to Lydia, who nodded. “But it isn’t. I really liked talking to you this week, and especially last night. I just didn’t want you to know you’d gotten Catfished. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

Derek gave him a look that said point blank, _no shit_. “But, you liked talking to me?”

Stiles quirked one side of his mouth up. “Yeah, I liked it a lot. I was actually Facebook you later, ask you how you were.” Derek quirked one side of his mouth up. “I like you because you’re really cool, and your family is really weird, and I don’t really have a big family and I just find you really interesting. In a good way.”

“Same here.”

Stiles felt himself light up. “Really? Can I get your number then sometime?” Derek rolled his eyes and handed Stiles his phone. “Awesome.”

“And this, exactly, is why my presentation is entitled ‘Idiots’. I will send you both copies of this to share with whomever you want to. I, however, am taking two more doughnuts and going to Danny’s house. He’s going to help me go through whether I should get a dorm room at MIT or go for an apartment.” She sniffed and wrapped up two doughnuts. “Gentlemen.” She started to pack up as Stiles turned back to Derek.

“So, uh, do you like Star Wars?” Derek grinned.

\--

Stiles spent all of Saturday afternoon with Derek, marathoning the original trilogy. Eventually Derek had to go home, with a promise to text Stiles back with his number.

Sunday was spent working on school and convincing Derek to sit with him at B lunch on Monday. He said he would have to bring Erica and Boyd, but Stiles told him it was cool. They’d probably just suck face like they had during lunch last week when Stiles had seen them.

Monday was boring. No homeroom, AP European was on to the Napoleonic Wars and Stiles was not interested, instead doodling in the margins of his notes. He had all of his Spanish homework done though, and when he slid into class he waited anxiously for Derek to come in. Derek, who quirked one side of his mouth and slid into what was normally Scott’s desk. Senora Ramirez was still out, so Stiles knew that Laura would be showing that movie again and he and Derek could probably pass notes back and forth. 

They did. It was kind of cute, in a way that made Stiles feel like he was in a movie. Mostly Derek bitching about Laura and how he had seen this movie ten million times already, or about how he hated a certain character’s costume, or about how hungry he was. It was weird, Derek talked more in the notes than he did in real life. Laura caught them once, tapping Derek on the shoulder, but merely laughed at him and let them keep going for the rest of class.

Study hall had him restless, but he did the rest of his calc homework with Lydia looking over his shoulder and wiggling her eyebrows. They had texted a little bit the day before but he had only told her that Derek would be sitting with them at lunch. 

Which he did. It wasn’t awkward or strange to have him plop down next to Stiles, forcing Scott to sit next to Allison, who he immediately engaged in some story or another. Derek, who took great interest in his huge sandwich he had packed, listened to Lydia and Stiles bicker good naturedly about schools they had gotten into and standardized testing, not adding anything but just nodding a little when certain things were said, leaning into Stiles’ space from time to time and stealing a cracker from his ham and cheese lunchable. 

It was peaceful, and friendly, and Stiles liked it. 

\--

Tuesday went by in the same manner. It was just as if Derek, Erica and Boyd had been absorbed into their friend group, and since they didn’t have the same lunch on A days, Jackson only minimally bitched at Stiles about sitting with Erica at the game the week before. He then went on a tirade about going to the away game that Friday, which Lydia rolled her eyes at as she filed her nails over her empty sushi container.

Wednesday was a little nerve wracking, but when the whole entire Beacon Valley basketball team showed up to the GSA meeting it was kind of a shock. Derek sat next to Stiles and didn’t say one whole word, but it was nice to have the support. Stiles watched Jackson throughout the meeting and he swore he could see steam coming out of his ears, but Danny was incredibly pleased. And Danny was the president apparently, so that meant Jackson would keep his mouth shut.

On the way out to the parking lot after, Derek slung his arm around Stiles’ shoulders and squeezed. “I had a really nice time.” He said softly to Stiles, who grinned back. 

“I’m glad you came.” Stiles realized what he had said. “To the meeting. I’m glad you came to the meeting.”

Derek snorted and ruffled his hair before heading to his own car. “I’ll text you.”

“Okay!” Stiles said, sounding overly cheery to his own ears. Fuck he needed to stop being so enthusiastic. 

\--

Thursday and Friday blended together, the only highlight being that they were near the end of Macbeth and Derek asking Stiles to go to the game with Erica on Friday. Since it was a ‘home’ game for Beacon Valley, it would be at the school.

“So, you know, she doesn’t have to bring her parents to the game.” Was the excuse he used when he asked Stiles at lunch.

“Okay, whatever Derek.” He replied back, rolling his eyes. Derek glared and Stiles licked at the lid of his pudding cup victoriously. 

\--

Stiles dressed up a little bit for the game, in more neutral colors than normal. However he was stuck wearing his ugly ass winter jacket that was technically his dad’s because it was close to 40 degrees out. Northern California, what a weird place.

He met Erica at the entrance to the school. “Buddy, is your jacket from the early 2000’s?”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s my dad’s.”

They sat with the Hales again. Surprisingly Mr. Hale was with them. He remembered Derek’s posts on his tumblr that he had to tried to forget and Derek bringing up in his texts from earlier that his mom and sisters would probably be there, but not Peter or his dad because Peter had to do something that night.

Derek was probably going to be jazzed to see his dad. 

They were playing some team from near Sacremento, who were admittedly a lot better than the Beacon Hills team. This meant they were equal to Beacon Valley. Derek didn’t get fouled as much, but he did score a three pointer at the buzzer, which Mr. Hale gave a loud whistle too. Derek’s eyes lit up when he saw Mr. Hale sitting on the bleachers. He beamed as he flicked his eyes around the cheering section, between his dad, his sister, then Stiles, squeezed between Laura and Erica. 

Probably with some renewed determination, Derek went hard in the paint during the second half. He scored twice as many baskets as he had in the first half, didn’t foul once and wasn’t taken out once during the game. As the buzzer blared, declaring Beacon Valley the winners, he punched the air and did a backflip of all things. His whole family went crazy, standing and stomping on the bleachers, freaking out in a way he’d seen his dad and Mrs. McCall do a couple of times at lacrosse games last year. 

It was amazing.

His family waited around this time, so Stiles was getting pestered by Laura about whether or not he liked the movie in class or not when Derek came out, freshly showered and in a black t-shirt and a pair of loose jeans. His dad hopped the bleachers and gave his son a hug, murmuring words into his ear that made Derek squeeze harder. His mom used the stairs and he gave her an equally as big hug. He gave Cora a shoulder squeeze and Laura gave him a kiss on the cheek that he gave her a grossed out look for. It was clearly fake, his eyes giving him away. 

He was happy. Stiles was happy too.

Mr. Hale also gave Boyd a good old slap on the back hug, which he seemed to take with equal enthusiasm as Derek. Boyd had never seemed to be overly invested in Derek, but it was clear between Mr. Hale hugging him and Mrs. Hale giving him a tight squeeze that Boyd was Derek’s best friend. 

“How cute.” Stiles said genuinely to Erica. 

“Yeah, Boyd spends a lot of his free time over there with his little sisters. They’re kind of monsters but Cora loves them. He’s kind of their second son.”

“Like me and Scott.”

Erica grinned. “Exactly.”

Before they could continue, Stiles heard the bleachers rattle in front of him. When he turned, he saw the whole Hale family in front of him. “Mom, Dad, this is Stiles.”

Shit. Stiles pulled his best smile out and leaned over the bleachers, offering his hand to Mr. Hale. “Hi.”

Mr. Hale had a firm grip, one that reminded him of his own dad, and shook the proper amount of time. “Nice to meet you formally, Stiles.”

“Same to you, sir.” Mr. Hale raised an eyebrow.

“Honey, I’ve already met Stiles,” Derek’s mom added, “but hello again.”

“Hi!”

“It was good to see you again, Stiles. Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of you soon.”

“Yeah, I hope not sporadically!” Laura snorted at the reference. 

“Anyway, Derek,” his mom turned to him, “we’re gonna head home so your dad can get some rest. We’re going to go out to breakfast tomorrow morning, so don’t stay out too late.” She pecked him on the cheek.

“Yes, mom.” He said, a blush on his face.

“You too, Boyd.” 

Boyd nodded solemnly. 

The Hales left in a flurry of sound and movement, Laura and Cora jostling each other as they left, Mr. and Mrs. Hale swinging their hands back and forth, Peter texting someone on his phone gleefully. 

Erica had headed down to the floor and kicked her shoes off. Boyd had produced a ball from somewhere and they started to play one on one as Derek leaned over the barricade to Stiles. “So, we were gonna head to the diner. We normally do after games. Do you want to come?”

Stiles grinned. “Hell yeah!” He picked up his ugly jacket. “I mean, I have a curfew but if I text my dad now I can definitely go!” Stiles busted out his phone and shot his dad a quick text. He looked up to find a blue Beacon Valley varsity jacket hanging in his face. He looked up to find Derek fully pulled up onto the bleachers. 

“Take it. Yours is ugly.” Stiles wasn’t going to mention it was his dad’s or that his hadn’t come in yet. Instead he just took the offer and slid it over his shoulders. Derek slid on his leather jacket. 

“Thanks.” Stiles phone buzzed with an affirmative from his dad. “I can go.”

Derek gestured to the exit with his head and Stiles took the stairs to the floor. Boyd and Erica were wrestling over the ball playfully, but when they heard Stiles shoes squeak embarrassingly on the floor, they stopped. Erica’s face spread into a sly grin and she grabbed her shoes. “I’m riding with Stiles!” She shouted and Boyd rolled his eyes.

As they left the building, Derek slung his arm over Stiles’ shoulders and whispered into his ears. “I really like you.”

Stiles turned to him and smiled. “Me too.”

It wasn’t for show, or for Kate and Julia. This wasn’t some lame teen comedy ending that made little to no sense. This was an acceptance of the weird situation they had been forced into. This was Derek hearing the full story and liking Stiles anyway. 

It was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was not how I was going to end this AT ALL. I had the original ending written two weeks ago but I read this amazing thread of comments between JCC and TheHorridTruth and I had to ask myself if that was a real ending. If that was a logical ending. This wasn't a teen movie, this wasn't in reality how I wanted to end this.
> 
> So this is the ending I spent two weeks writing and rewriting. It is a little longer than usual and probably feels kind of rushed at the end but the monotony of school got boring to write and I'm sure y'all don't actually care.
> 
> Please do not hesitate to tell me if you hated this ending or if you liked it or whatever!!! I'm obviously so excited to hear from you guys and your opinions. I still have zero motivation to write the second part of 'The Story of Us' - so sorry - but I was thinking of doing an AU of the book 'Ransom My Heart' by Meg Cabot. Do you guys think this is a good idea? 
> 
> Let me know!
> 
> Lots of love and light from me.


End file.
